


magical practicalities

by blueink3



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic Violence, Family Feels, Gratuitous Use of F-Bombs, Halloween, M/M, Magic, Murder (sort of), Practical Magic AU, Sibling bickering, Siblings, Spells & Enchantments, Witches, soulmates or whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2020-12-27 03:41:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21112085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueink3/pseuds/blueink3
Summary: When Moira Owens met Johnny Rose, she knew that he was safe from the curse that took her father. She knew that she could allow herself to fall in love with him; could build a life with him and plan a future that he would always be by her side for.Whatever children they had, however, would not be so lucky.Oh hey, it's the Practical Magic AU that absolutely no one asked for.





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [blueink3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueink3/pseuds/blueink3) in the [Schittscreekspookyseason](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Schittscreekspookyseason) collection. 

> \- Knowledge of Practical Magic is not necessary for this fic. I think it's pretty clear what it's about in the first chapter (though if anything isn't, give me a heads up, and I'll address it asap).  
\- Imagine that our dear Schitt's Creek is set in a slightly more picturesque locale, perhaps on the water on the eastern coast of Canada instead of... wherever it is it is.  
\- Chapter titles come from a little Scottish play you may have heard of.

For more than 200 years, the Owens children have been blamed for almost everything that’s gone wrong in the coastal town of Schitt’s Creek. No, they weren’t burned or stoned or hanged, like many of their brethren to the south in New England. The townspeople didn’t _ hate _ them; they weren’t the hating kind. The Owens children just made people a little... nervous. For good reason. 

The temper tantrum that four-year-old Agatha Owens threw in 1923 due to a lost doll resulted in the local schoolhouse going up in flames. Completely accidentally, of course. The doll was recovered and the school’s reconstruction coffers amply lined by an anonymous donor, but the apprehension that remained was justifiable. 

In 1969, Percy Owens got high as a kite and the town woke the next morning to find that all of the crops on the outskirts had somehow transformed into sunflowers. Which was beautiful, to be sure, but the decimated harvest bankrupted more than a few farms. 

The “accidents,” as the locals had taken to calling them, were mostly harmless. No ill will was ever truly intended, save for a bad egg here and there. After all, they may have been witches, but they were human, too.

In 1875, local blacksmith Jeremiah Woods left his lover, Frances Owens, for another woman. The next day, a stray black cat appeared wandering down Main Street, and Jeremiah Woods was never seen again. Legend has it that the cat supposedly had Jeremiah’s blue eyes, but no one could ever say so for sure. To this day, people still claim to see a black cat wandering around the local cafe that used to be the smithy, begging for scraps, but he’s mostly faded into memory, joining the hallowed ranks of some of the town’s more colorful folklore. 

It still doesn’t stop the children from staring every once in awhile. Granted, it probably doesn’t help that the most recent descendants of the Owens coven dress like they’re going to a tea party hosted by Tim Burton. 

All in all, the Owens family were good people - but the origin of their craft and their place in this town were not so innocently born:

It all began with a wronged woman, as so many of these stories do. She had a gift, the gift of magic, the first in the family to possess it. In 1693, she escaped execution with the help of a well-timed spell and fled to the town her descendants still live in, pregnant with the child of a man who would never come to save her. 

But she waited. And waited. And waited. 

In a moment of despair, she cast a spell upon herself that she would never again feel the agony of love. And as her bitterness grew, the spell turned into a curse; a curse on any man or woman who dared love an Owens. Her newborn daughter softened her heart a bit, but not much. A last minute reprieve resulted in a stay of execution for every other generation, sparing her child the heartbreak of love lost that she herself endured. 

Over centuries, her descendants would grow to fear the sound of the deathwatch beetle, a dire warning and a ringing omen for a love’s impending demise. The ticking of the insect was like a clock that could not be stopped, counting down the hours, minutes, seconds before another life was snuffed too soon. 

In 1982, when Moira Owens met Johnny Rose, she knew that he was safe from the curse that took her father. She knew that she could allow herself to fall in love with him; could build a life with him and plan a future that he would always be by her side for. 

Whatever children they had, however, would not be so lucky. 

xxxxxx

David Rose is ten-years-old when he masters his first spell, sitting cross-legged on the hardwood floor of the living room in their white Victorian house overlooking the harbor. 

The threadbare rug has been rolled back and pewter candlesticks have been lined up carefully in front of the fireplace, cream-colored candles of varying heights standing at attention. David sits at one end of the row and eight-year-old Alexis sits at the other. Their mother is switching between radio stations with the flick of her wrist as their father reads the local paper. 

Rain pelts at the windows and the occasional flash of lightning slices through the sky. David loves nights like these. It means the Rose family holes up in the house, hot chocolate on the stove (that his mother definitely does _ not _ make) and spell book open on the table (that _ no one _but his mother touches). 

He leans forward, eyes closed, and blows out a slow, steady breath. The wick of the candle in front of him smokes before promptly catching light, and he tilts back with a wide smile on his face, looking at his mother expectantly. It’s one of the rare moments she offers her praise without prompting. 

“Well done, David. You’ve been blessed with a most fortuitous gift.” 

“What about me?” Alexis asks, the candles in front of her still very much dark. 

“Oh we don’t worry about you, Alexis dear. Your talents will emerge in time.” 

David wasn’t so sure. At the moment, her talents consisted of stealing his toys and whining when she got caught. 

He continues down the row, lit candles sparking to life in his wake. He gets to the final one in front of Alexis, and she leans out his way, a pout on her face. 

“You have to want it,” he whispers. 

“I want it,” she replies, affronted. 

“No, you want Mom’s approval. You don’t want the flame. Try again.” 

He watches as she scrunches up her face and leans forward, inhaling deeply before blowing her breath out. 

“Open your eyes,” he says, watching the candlelight dance across her ecstatic face. “See?” 

xxxxxx

David Rose is twelve-years-old when he sees magic being used for the first time for purposes that are less than, shall we say, pure. 

A harsh banging sounds at the back door, the one off the kitchen that everyone uses instead of the grander entrance in the mahogany-paneled foyer. David rubs his eyes as he trips down the square spiral staircase, socks slipping on the hardwood. He leans over the railing as he gets closer to the kitchen and watches as his mother opens the door for a woman who’s all but clawing at the glass. 

“I need help,” the woman says, desperation clear in her tone. 

“I can see that,” his mother replies, coolly holding a hand out and gesturing to the island in the middle of the kitchen where the woman takes a seat on a stool. “John, get the bird.” 

“Get the book,” his father murmurs in reply from the living room where David can’t see. 

“What’s going on?” Alexis asks behind him, and he immediately grabs her and pulls her down next to him with a hushed, “Shhh.” 

Their mother places the heavy, leather-bound spell book on the counter and flips through the weathered pages. A chirp signals their father’s return, clutching a dove in his hands that he passes off to his wife when she’s found what she’s looking for. 

“I want him so, so much, I can’t think about anything else,” the woman is saying. David recognizes her from the grocery store. 

“John,” his mother murmurs, and his father nods and leaves. Despite how supportive he is, he doesn’t actually like things like this. Dark things. Lighting candles is one thing. Whatever this is is clearly something different. 

Much later, David will learn that his mother always made his father leave in case things went wrong. Because if things went wrong, plausible deniability was something she always wanted the people she loved to have. 

“I don’t sleep, I-I can’t eat,” the woman babbles, nearly manic. “I - he has to leave his wife. He has to leave her now.” 

David nearly sticks his head through the railing in his effort to hear, and Alexis slides down on the step in front of him, leaning back against his knees. 

“Perhaps you might find a companion better suited,” his mother murmurs, even as she arranges the pocket watch and the photo the woman has brought with her to her liking, before plucking a piece of hair from a comb. The dove wanders aimlessly on the counter, beak inspecting whatever crumbs are leftover from dinner. 

“No, I don’t want anyone else. Why the hell else would I come here?” The woman’s voice rises and Alexis tenses. He puts his hand on her shoulder and squeezes. 

“Do you have the remittance?” his mother asks as she scoops up the dove, and the woman tosses a roll of bills onto the table, before picking up a long needle. 

“I want him to want me so much that he can’t stand it,” she says. Then she pierces the chest of the bird, and David claps a hand over his eyes. Alexis flinches at his feet, but continues watching. 

He hears their mother murmur, “Be careful what you wish for,” and peeks through his fingers to find the woman staring into space, unfocused, as their mother takes the needle from her limp fingers. The bird lies motionless on the table and, God, David _ really _ hopes they adequately sanitize that. 

“I hope I never fall in love,” he murmurs, but Alexis is all but vibrating at his feet. 

“I can’t _ wait _ to fall in love.” 

“Kids,” their father admonishes, standing on the landing above them. He must have come up from the main staircase in the foyer. “You shouldn’t be seeing this. Come to bed.” He holds out a hand, which Alexis takes, following up him up the stairs. 

David stands a bit more slowly, glancing back over his shoulder to find his mother watching him thoughtfully. 

xxxxxx

_ “I hope I never fall in love.” _

David lies in bed staring at the ceiling, just waiting until he hears the telltale creak of the floorboard outside his parents’ bedroom before throwing the covers off and tiptoeing back downstairs.

He doesn’t ever want to feel… _ that_. It looks awful. 

Padding into the attached greenhouse, he grabs a wooden bowl from a cabinet under the counter and opens his black journal where he doodles sketches and jots down the occasional spell that will probably never work. 

He hopes this one does, though. Life will be so much more bearable with it. 

“He will hear my call a mile away,” he whispers, pulling a petal from the orchid in the pot on the island and tossing it in the bowl. “He will whistle my favorite song.” A sprig of rosemary joins it. “He can ride a pony backwards.” A hibiscus gets tossed in next. 

“What are you doing?” Alexis hisses from the doorway and he jumps, nearly tossing his ingredients. 

“Summoning up a true love spell. Maybe.” He plucks a single, pale rose petal. “He can flip pancakes in the air.” 

“It’s always pancakes with you,” she mutters, but she comes closer. 

“Shut up,” he replies, and he lets her. “He’ll have curly hair and honey-colored eyes with a ring of green around them. He’ll be ridiculously kind and unwaveringly brave. And his favorite shape will be a star.” He stares at the white jasmine he’s pulled before throwing it in the bowl with the rest. 

“I thought you never wanted to fall in love.” 

David stops in the doorway, feeling an ache in his chest that he’s pretty sure he’s too young to feel. “That’s the point. This guy doesn’t exist. And if he doesn’t exist, then I’ll never feel like she did,” he says, nodding towards the kitchen and the memory of the woman who’s probably not better off than she was before she came here. 

“Was that love?” Alexis asks, and it might be the smartest question she’s ever had. 

“I don’t know, but I don’t want it.” 

He marches past her, up the stairs and to the balcony off his bedroom, bowl in hand. The summer air is still warm, but the wrought-iron railing he leans against is cold through his thin pajamas. Alexis watches quietly, for once, at his side. 

He holds the bowl out and closes his eyes, whispering desires and fears under his breath, the way his mother taught him.

_ “You have to want it,” _he had said once. 

And he does. 

The petals float out of the bowl and swirl into the night sky, tumbling over and over, dark against a pale full moon. 

David wants to _ not _ want more than anything.

xxxxxx

David Rose is twenty-years-old when Alexis runs away. Like their mother promised, her talents do emerge, but in the form of midnight getaways and luring gullible (but attractive) men to her bed. 

“David, get the door!” she giggles, voice straining under the weight of the bag she carries. 

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, but still closes the door behind them, hoping to muffle his sister’s laughter from their sleeping parents down the hall. 

Alexis throws a Louis Vuitton duffle over the balcony railing, down into the waiting arms of the meathead in the cutoff t-shirt below. 

“Wow,” David drawls, arms crossed over his chest. 

“I know, right?” 

He wrinkles his nose and watches carefully as she straddles the railing, ready to jump down onto the roof below. 

“Do you really love him, though? Like, enough to shack up with him?” he asks. “Or, going by his look, enough to potentially die in a bar fight for him?” 

“C’mon, David,” she groans. “What’s enough? I hate it here. I want to go where no one’s ever heard of us.” 

He almost bristles at that on behalf of the town. It’s not a terrible place. Small? Sure. Beautiful? Definitely. Nice? Annoyingly so, despite the rumors. But unlike David, Alexis never quite found her place here. Just like he’s unsure he’d ever find his place out there. 

Wherever there is. 

“Well - are you coming back?” 

She shrugs and picks at a fringe on the suede bag thrown across her chest. “I don’t know.” 

He feels like someone has reached into his chest and scooped out everything that made him David Rose. Who is he without her? They’ve never been apart. 

“David, we’re going to grow old together,” she says, reading his mind. He once asked his mother if telepaths ran in the family, too, but she shook her head and succinctly declared, ‘Just witches.’

“Ugh.” 

“Stop it,” she pinches his arm, “you know you want to.” 

“Fall off a bridge please.” 

She grins at him. “Only if you come with me.” 

“Okay, that’s morbid. I told you stop hanging around the cemetery.” 

“But it has the best makeout tree.” 

They stare at each other for a second, recognizing that this is it. Everything they’ve grown up knowing and learning changes now. The moment Alexis jumps off this roof into the arms of the serial killer-to-be below. 

Alexis rolls her eyes and groans, but it’s half-hearted at best. “I’ll come back.” 

“You swear?” David blurts out before he can take it back. 

She huffs and looks over her shoulder. “Babe, give me your knife.” 

_ What? _ “What?” 

The boy toy tosses his Swiss army blade up and Alexis catches it deftly. “Give me your hand.” 

“Ew, Alexis.” 

“Don’t ‘ew’ me, David. Give me your _ hand_.” 

He huffs, but holds it out. 

“I swear,” she murmurs, before bringing the knife across her palm. “My blood.” Then she does the same to David’s and he hisses. “Your blood.”

“Our blood,” they both murmur, clasping their cut hands together. 

“Ow,” he moans, pulling away and looking at the wound. “If this scars, I’ll kill you.” 

She rolls her eyes again. “Ugh, if this scars, you can magic it away, David. You’re actually good at that.” 

And then she goes, climbing over the railing and down the roof, jumping on this jockstrap’s back and waving lazily over her shoulder - like she isn’t leaving David alone for the first time in their lives. 

“I’ll send you a postcard!” she calls, blowing him a kiss that he doesn’t bother to catch. 

He goes to bed and stares at his bandaged palm, wincing as he stretches and contracts his fingers, pulling at the skin. 

_ “You can magic it away,” _she had said.

He doesn’t apply anything stronger than antibiotic cream. 

xxxxxx

David Rose is 23-years-old when he first has to rescue Alexis. It’s a tradition that continues for the next several years. 

Sometimes it requires him to get on a plane. More often than not, it requires him to harangue poor Karen down at the post office to mail questionable items he’s found on the internet, or to bribe Roland into letting him borrow his truck to make an exchange at the border. 

In these years, his life is dull. Until it’s not. 

xxxxxx

David Rose is 28-years-old when he finally admits that he’s lonely. 

The postcards come and go, marking birthdays and holidays that Alexis has missed, sent from places that David will never go. 

“Alexis is in Ibiza!” his father exclaims as he inspects the latest mailing. 

“I guess that financier has gone the way of yesteryear,” his mother says. 

“According to this, he has.” 

David rolls his eyes and leans over a basket of apples at the farmer’s market outside of the post office. It pops up every Saturday, the one mandatory outing his parents insist he join for. 

“I don’t know why you’re surprised. She goes through guys faster than Mom goes through benzos,” he mutters. His father glares, but his mother, in typical fashion, merely twirls the black lace parasol in her hand. 

“Hopefully someday she’ll find a guy who goes through her.” 

His father looks pained. “Moira, can we not?” 

“Please, John. It would do her good. David, darling, do you miss her?” 

“No,” he snaps, handing over money for the apples to a woman who will not meet his eye. 

“David, I wish you would just - embrace joy, for once in your life.” 

“Oh is that what I’m supposed to do? Embrace joy? Is that before or after whatever joy I embrace gets ripped from my hands to work in a factory like a Dickensian orphan. Yes, hi. I know you heard that,” he says to the man _ clearly _eavesdropping on the conversation. “You’ve had three hundred years. This is not news.” 

The man (_Bob_, he thinks), holds his hands up in mock surrender, before picking up his paper and flicking it with an amused smile. Oh yes, laugh at the Roses. They’re no longer turning children into newts like the good old days, so everything is all sunshine and rainbows. 

His father sighs the sigh he usually does when David gets morose like this, but David merely glares, holding his apples to his chest and turning - 

And abruptly running into someone taking photographs. 

“Oh,” he blurts, gaze raking over the man before he can help it. He’s taller than David and wearing artfully distressed brown corduroy pants with a sweater that David isn’t sure he picked up off the street or on Rodeo Drive. It’s not love at first sight, by any means. That doesn’t exist. Lust at first sight, perhaps, but this person doesn’t look like the kind who stays in Schitt’s Creek very long. 

The man - Sebastien, David learns over a drink that evening - proves him wrong, though. 

He stays for a month, taking photos for an exhibit that will show in the city, but then one month becomes two and two becomes three. He goes to Toronto for the opening, but returns just as quickly. David isn’t used to people returning to the town once they’ve left. Maybe that’s why he never has. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he’s not sure his mother would survive with both of her children gone. 

Sebastien never does learn about David’s secret. If he hears the gossip, he pays it no mind. David certainly doesn’t flaunt his skills; in fact, he barely points a finger, and his magic grows rusty as the months grow longer. 

He can feel it, though. Like an itch that persists until it’s scratched. But he doesn’t want to scare Sebastien, doesn’t want to _ lose _ Sebastien, and so he snuffs it out, like those candles he learned to light oh so long ago. 

He keeps expecting to hear the deathwatch beetle - to let him know that their time is coming to an end. It seems unfair that he was allowed even this measure of happiness (if happiness is what this is), but he never does. 

Because, as much as David loves Sebastien, Sebastien doesn’t actually love him in return. 

David could make him. There are spells for that. But who needs a deathwatch beetle when finding out your relationship is a complete lie causes just as much pain as untimely death? That is the point of the curse, isn’t it? Pain through loss?

But how can you lose something you never actually had to begin with?

xxxxxx

He never does learn that his mother had a hand in the mounting days that Sebastien chose to stay. 

xxxxxx

David Rose is on the far side of 30 when he finally feels content for the first time in his life. He’s still bruised, make no mistake. People still stare, because they’re people, and they don’t know any better, but he doesn’t mind it as much. 

He has a store now: Rose Apothecary. The town gossips about it but despite what they say, there isn’t a cauldron in the back room and they aren’t using human sacrifices to make the exfoliating scrub as effective as it is. The rumor mill doesn’t stop people from buying his products, though. In fact, he may even be leaning into the lore, surrounding the rose in his brand label with witch-hazel on either side. 

He has a friend: Stevie. She runs the motel and volunteers in the store when needed, mainly to sample the products and crack open a bottle of wine with him after hours. It helps that half the town thinks she’s a witch, too. 

And he has someone who loves him unconditionally, finally: a black and white mutt named Winnie who wouldn’t stop following him one afternoon at a pet adoption fair he'd been dragged to, no matter how many times David tried to scare the damn puppy off. Sure, dogs fly in the face of convention, but cats are too bitchy and, between Stevie and his mother, he has enough of that in his life. Besides, the curve of Winnie’s spine fits perfectly into his side, and he finds he can’t fall asleep without her nuzzling into his arm anyway. 

He doesn’t have Alexis, though. She left him with nothing but a wall full of postcards and a scar. He never did magic it away, even if it does itch when it rains. 

He knows the curse is still a thing, hanging over his head like a cloud that won’t go with the breeze. 

Which is fine, all things considered. 

David isn’t planning on falling in love again anyway.


	2. double, double, toil and trouble

October arrived in a swirl of biting wind, tacky decorations, and gratuitous pumpkin flavoring, and David is so fucking _ tired _ of his mid-afternoon coffee break being interrupted by dodging _ children _ riding _ scooters _on his way back to the store. 

“Eyes up, kid!” he shouts as he weaves out of the way of another rollered menace, almost ending up in a potted plant in his $1,300 Saint Laurent sweater. 

“Sorry!” the kid at least says, but David is too busy licking drops of his jostled macchiato from his hand to truly appreciate the manners of a pre-teen. That could also just be a healthy dose of fear. The closer they get to Halloween, the more the people of Schitt’s Creek tend to keep their distance with their eyes down. 

“Ugh,” he groans as he all but kicks the door to the Apothecary open. “Can’t they, like, be in school all day?” 

“They basically are,” Stevie deadpans from behind the counter as she rings someone up. 

“I meant, until at least 10pm.” 

She manages a smile that looks more like a grimace for the woman who, though pleased with her purchase, still gives David a wide berth as she exits. 

“See, there are these things called laws?” Stevie says as she leans her elbows on the counter and props her chin up in her hands. “I notice you’re only holding one coffee cup.” 

He stops midway to the ground to pet Winnie. “You said you didn’t want anything!” 

She shrugs. “I changed my mind.” 

“Okay, you know what?” he snaps as he stands. “Despite what everyone thinks, I’m not actually a mind reader! None of us are.” 

She hums. “Bummer.” And then she smiles in a way that lets him know this has all been just a fun interlude for her. 

“You’re the worst.” 

“I know.” 

He gives in to Winnie’s pathetic whine at his aborted scratches and lavishes her with attention for a moment. She’s as needy as he is, which is probably why they’re a match made in hell. Her stylishly monogrammed dog bed matches the sand and stone aesthetic that he mood-boarded when he came up with the idea for the store perfectly, so she’s never far from him or the comfort she’s (clearly) grown accustomed to.

“Do you have your products ready for the festival?” Stevie asks, and he pauses while rearranging the body lotion that someone presumably perused and did not put back properly. 

“Do I look like someone who celebrates Halloween?”

Stevie gives him a once-over. “Do you really want me to answer that?” 

He rolls his eyes and takes a long gulp of his coffee. Yes, he knows his color palette is limited. It’s been carefully curated that way on purpose. Besides, the Owens/Roses don’t _ do _ the festival. He only allows himself to be dragged to those things so he can be entertained, not be the entertainment. 

“You’ve never seen a baby pumpkin you didn’t want to buy,” she continues. “Your store is full of them.” 

He glances around and, sure enough, they do dot nearly every available surface. But tastefully.

“Excuse you, Halloween does not have a monopoly on baby bumpkins. That is fall. That is autumn. That is _ harvest_. There is nothing scary about pumpkins.” 

“Tell that to Jamie Lee Curtis.” 

He ignores her and instead focuses his ire on the black mass inching closer to the knitware.

“Shoo, Jeremiah.” The cat gives him a baleful look. “Don’t look at me like that. I will not tell you again. You get black hair all over the white alpaca throws.” 

The cat gives a mournful meow but dutifully slinks off to curl up in the windowsill. He really should be back at the cafe. It’s the time of year when people go looking for him anyway, but David’s store has the big windows and the wide sills. Like Winnie, the damn feline has grown accustomed to the finer things. 

“Have you heard from Alexis?” Stevie asks a bit more quietly, looking busy as she fusses with the roll of tape in the till. 

“I believe her last postcard was from New Hampshire,” he replies probably too casually. “At some lodge.” Something sharp takes hold behind his ribs. 

“That sounds nice.” 

He gives a noncommittal hum. 

“New Hampshire isn’t that far. Think she’ll come home?” 

The sharp thing twists. Luckily, he can manage nonchalance even under the most strenuous of circumstances. It might actually be the greatest of all his gifts. “It’s been, like, ten years. I stopped holding my breath after two.” 

“Telling people you can hold your breath for two years won’t help stop the rumor mill.” 

“Shut up, Stevie.” 

“Make me,” she presses and stares, a challenge. They both know he could. 

If he wanted to. 

“Please,” he starts, but it gets caught in his throat. “I probably couldn’t cast even if I tried.”

“You’d have to actually try to know for sure,” she fires back. The jab is relatively benign given their history, but it cuts deep. 

Because it’s true. He hasn’t tried in far too long. 

And the magic knows it. 

xxxxxx

The house is lit up against the night sky by the time he arrives home that evening. It’s an imposing, beautiful, and terrifying thing that wouldn’t look out of place in a travel calendar (people have asked) or a Stephen King novel (his mother has tried). 

Dry leaves crunch under his shoes as he makes his way up the path, stretching his neck and trying not to trip over Winnie whom he lets go off-leash when they get away from Main Street. The boards of the porch creak under his weight as he takes the stairs to the back door by the garden. His parents’ voices filter in through the cracked window and he pauses for a moment, ignoring the dog currently nosing at the door, wondering why it’s not being opened for her. 

“ - used to be so good. Why doesn’t he anymore?” 

“I don’t know, John dear. His business could be flourishing. I fear Alexis’ departure left a hole in his heart that cannot be filled.” 

He bristles at that while simultaneously rolling his eyes. His business is _ fine_, thank you very much, and he doesn’t have a heart, or so people have told him. So. There’s that. 

He opens the door and turns into the kitchen, eyebrows raised as both parents look at him innocently. “What’s going on in here?”

“Nothing at all. Just making toast,” his mother replies, glancing at the toaster out of the corner of her eye and causing two pieces of bread to pop up. 

“Uh huh,” he says, skepticism clear. “I’ll be outside.” 

“There’s dinner in the oven, son,” his father adds. “A roast.” 

He pauses. This could go one of two ways. “Who made it?” 

His father raises an eyebrow. “I did.” 

Oh thank God. “Mkay. I’ll think about it.” It’ll still probably be a charred mess, but at least his father’s cooking yields something resembling food. His mother’s attempts could potentially kill you. They’ve tried to hire household staff, but none of them ever stayed for long. 

He heads upstairs to change, putting on a pair of joggers and one of his cozier sweaters. Thick socks cover his feet as he pads back down, journal in hand. Dinner does smell good and his stomach is grumbling, but he doesn’t want to give his parents the satisfaction. Living with them for thirty-plus years has made him petty like that. 

Passing by the kitchen once more, he gestures for Winnie who’d been sitting under his father’s chair. She leaps to her feet, and her paws (which are still too big for her body) skitter across the hardwood floor. 

He grabs a wine bottle from the rack and a glass from the cabinet before his mother calls out to him. 

“David, there’s a circle around the moon,” she says, and he stops. 

Circle around the moon. _ Trouble not far ahead. _

She looks at him over her glasses. Keenly. “Keep an eye out, would you?”

He swallows and nods, holding the neck of the bottle a bit tighter, before pushing the door to the front porch open and sitting on the swing. It creaks under his weight and is in desperate need of a new paint job, but it can be difficult getting contractors to come to the old Owens house. And none of the Roses would label themselves as “handy.” 

He’s just gotten comfortable when he realizes he forgot to grab a wine opener. He stares at the bottle, wishing his standards had allowed him to purchase a screw-top instead, but life is short and his palate is picky. He concentrates on the cork, eyes narrowing as he envisions it twisting up and out. 

_ You have to want it. _

And after the day he’s had, you bet your ass he does. 

He closes his eyes, not entirely sure this will work, but a moment later he hears the telltale pop of released air and the sound of the cork hitting the porch. He blows out a breath, more relieved than he’ll ever let on that he was able to pull that off. 

The magic has had a taste though, and it burns to be let loose. He tamps it down and pours enough wine for two, sitting back and groaning when Winnie leaps into his lap. He should shoo her off, bad habits and all, but she’s keeping him warm in the October breeze. 

He gently sways on the swing, pushing himself with his toe, letting the cabernet pop along his tongue. Maybe this is as happy as he gets. Maybe he had his chance. He doesn’t want to believe it, but it would be pretty fucking typical, curse or not. His love life has not exactly been a storyboard for a romcom. And the fact that he’s a grown man still living with his parents is not lost on him. No, Stevie takes care to remind him at every turn. 

The screen door creaks open and he looks over, expecting his father but finding his mother instead. She doesn’t come outside if she can help it. 

“We’re off to bed. Don’t forget your father and I leave in the morning for the solstice celebration.” 

He stops swinging at that. “That’s this weekend? You just said there’s a circle around the moon!”

“David, I can’t back out now. I’m on the committee. I’m doing a presentation.”

“Oh _ God_,” he mutters. Any presentation of his mother’s involves far too many wig changes and more glitter and showtunes than anyone should use outside of drag brunch. 

His father appears over his mother’s shoulder, because where one goes, the other must surely follow. 

“Just check the windows, son. Everything will be fine,” his father says. 

“Yes, if we have a nor’easter, I’ll make sure the _ windows are shut._” Sometimes they really do care about the most ridiculous things.

His parents disappear back inside and he opens his journal, flipping through the pages containing drawings he barely remembers making, spells he’ll never try, and emotions too big to say out loud until he gets to a blank one. 

But what is there to write? Nothing ever happens to him. 

Before he can ruminate further on that rather depressing thought, a phone rings, and something cold and heavy drops in the middle of his gut. It’s the house phone; the number their father made them memorize before they were even allowed to ride their bikes - not that they ever did that. 

_ Alexis_. 

He stands abruptly, upending Winnie who yelps, and all but crashes through the screen door, running through the foyer and skidding into the kitchen just as his mother is coming back down the stairs. “It’s Alexis.”

“I know,” he blurts, grabbing the receiver off the wall. “What’s wrong?” he clips into it. 

He hears her breathe first. Good. Breathing is good. 

“David, I’m scared,” she whispers. 

In all of the thirty years he’s known his sister, he’s never once heard those words leave her lips. 

She always was the brave one. 

“Can you come and get me?”

“Where are you?”

“Somewhere in Ohio.”

_ Christ, Alexis. _

“I’m coming.”

xxxxxx

It was the longest fucking flight of his life. Not that he’s been on many but, _ Jesus_. 

He had managed to get changed and pack a small bag in record time, remembering to text Stevie on his way out the door and into Roland’s borrowed truck.

** _I need you to pick up Winnie for a few days._ **

**[Stevie]**   
**Why? Where are you going? **

** _Sister SOS._ **

**[Stevie]**   
**Oh. Parents? **

** _Solstice thing._ **

**[Stevie]**   
**🧙🏻**

** _Hilarious. _ **

A minute later, he rethought alienating his only friend (and dogsitter). 

** _Thanks._ **

**[Stevie]**   
**I’ll watch the store, too. **

Sometimes he thinks he really doesn’t deserve her, but then he remembers what a gremlin she actually is and changes his mind. 

Cleveland is no one’s first pick for a final destination and, after almost 90 minutes of driving further and further away from the area’s only metropolis (and therefore, David’s only lifeline), he pulls up in front of a rundown motel, not all that different from the one back home, but lacking in small town charm. This is definitely the kind you find at 3am on the side of the highway with peeling paint and questionable carpeting. Alexis really has started slumming. 

He practically throws money at the driver and climbs out of the cab, striding into the over-warm lobby and banging on the glass partition. An older woman, looking like a lifelong chainsmoker that’s been ridden hard and put away wet, shuffles up to the desk with an unimpressed expression, but through sheer force of will, David not only manages to find out what room Alexis and her current paramour are in, but he gets a key too, no magic required. 

It’s amazing what results a charming smile and gross incompetence will yield. 

He hurries down the path, passing doors until he gets to her number. The key is sticky but it goes in with little resistance, and David pushes the door open slowly with a creak that sounds all too loud in the eerie, suffocating silence. 

“David?”

He starts and looks around, trying to find her in the darkness. She’s sitting on the far side of the bed, up against the wall, knees tucked up to her chest. 

“Hey,” she manages with a smile. 

He inches closer and takes in her running mascara and the bruise on her left cheekbone. 

“Fuck, Alexis,” he breathes, coming around the bed and crouching down in front of her. 

“Room service here sucks.”

“Well that’s what you get for lowering your standards, honey.” He says it softly as pets her limp hair, letting her know he’s teasing. 

“In my defense, we started at the Four Seasons. But he came in three days ago and said he owed some guys, like, a lot of money? We got in his car and just started driving, not even straight. Zig zags. He was heading for the border.”

“Which one?” he asks incredulously. “You were in New York and now you’re in the fucking boonies of Ohio.”

She shrugs and wipes her nose. He’d offer her in a tissue from the bedside table if he didn’t think she’d get syphilis from it. “Said they’d be looking for him in Buffalo. We were heading for Michigan.”

“Mkay, let’s get out of here before we catch something. Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He went to find a bar.” 

He gets a hand under her elbow and one around her back. She’s still that sinewy combination of skinny and strong, but she feels more fragile now than she ever has before. 

“I’m really fine, David.” 

“Uh huh,” he responds and continues helping her anyway. She lets him. “Where’s your stuff?” 

But she’s already grabbing the now-tattered Louis Vuitton from the foot of the bed, teetering towards the door in her five inch heels. 

“When did that happen?” he asks, gesturing to her cheek as he ushers her into the night. 

“We were at a rest stop today and some cute teen admired my scarf. Stavros, said ‘Thanks, it’s Hermes.’ Typical man, taking credit for taste just because it was his money that bought it. But he pronounced it _ her-meez_, you know, like the Greek god? Which I guess makes sense. He _ is _ Greek. But I said, “Stavros, it’s not _ her-meez, _ it’s _ air-mez_.’ And then the teen laughed and then I laughed and then he punched me.” 

David’s blood pressure is spiking but he remains quiet as he leads her towards the lobby so he can call the cab again. 

“He punched me real hard, the bastard. Oh -” She stops dead in the middle of the parking lot, staring up at the sky. 

“What is it? We have to go, Alexis. I doubt there’s a bustling nightlife here. He could come back any minute.” 

“Blood on the moon,” she breathes. He looks up and sure enough, there’s not just a circle around it anymore. The left hemisphere is stained red. 

Fuck. 

“Where’s my tiger’s eye?” she asks, patting her chest as if it’ll suddenly appear around her neck. “I need my tiger’s eye. It’s good luck.”

“Alexis - ”

“No, I left it. I’ve got to get my tiger’s eye,” she rambles, running (as much as it can be called that) to another car in the lot, a vintage Mustang that has seen better days. 

“Alexis! It’s probably in your bag! Jesus Christ…” He pays attention to her vaguely, pulling out his phone to dial the cab driver. He’d asked him to stay in the area because he wasn’t sure how long this would take and he didn’t expect there to be a plethora of options for the return trip.

He watches as Alexis opens the car door and reaches for something wrapped around the rearview mirror. He turns away to look at the bars on his phone, willing the call to go through, but when he turns back, he can’t see his sister. 

“Alexis?” With a groan, he stomps over, moving around to the passenger side door she’d left wide open. “If it’s that hard to find, just forget the damn neck - ”

He stops dead as he peeks in the car to find a man holding a gun to his sister’s neck in the backseat. 

Stavros looks like even more of a dick than David expected. 

“You drive.”

xxxxxx 

The stench of tequila is strong enough to nearly make David gag as he grips the wheel with white-knuckles, hands at 10 and 2. 

Luckily, Stavros, if that’s even his real name, is so bombed that he hasn’t noticed David has started driving back east, well away from the border crossing in Michigan. He’s singing ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ in an off-key way that is decidedly _ incorrect_, with an arm around Alexis’ neck that’s all but a headlock. 

If they survive this, he’s going to kill her. 

She meets his eye in the rearview mirror and flicks her gaze to the side, to her bag that rests cradled in the cracked leather of the passenger seat. He can almost hear her voice in his head: 

_ Belladonna. _

Yeah, he’s really going to have a conversation with his mother about telepathy. 

David casually reaches into Alexis’ bag and searches blindly until his fingers brush across a small glass vial. 

Stavros has gone from John Denver to some rambling treatise on Euripides. For all of the Greek in this asshole’s (admittedly) good looks and (questionably real) accent, his knowledge of his mother country’s history and cultural impact is woeful. 

He’s flipping a lighter open and closed, playing with the flame. David is watching him keenly, because flames in enclosed spaces being held by psychopaths are not part of his aesthetic. Stavros dresses and acts like he can’t decide if he belongs on the dance floor of New York nightclub or on the set of Goodfellas. The flame dances close to his hand, heating the signet ring he has on his pinky, which looks like something they pass out on day one of mafia training. 

“... and that is why Euripides is most known for inventing the deus ex machina,” he drunkenly drawls, inching his now hot ring closer and closer to Alexis’ face. 

“Stavros, no - ” She tries to fight him off, but even drunk, he’s got, like, fifty pounds of muscle on her. 

“Hey! Hey!” David yells, car swerving as he reaches back to get a hand on anything that will hold. 

“Watch the road!” Stavros screams, letting David knock the lighter from his hand. 

“Euripides didn’t invent the idea of a deus ex machina - ”

“Just keep your eyes on the road - !” 

“- Aeschylus was the first to use it and Aristotle was the first to name it. Euripides was known for making use of irony to foreshadow events and to occasionally amuse his audience, you immense _ asshole,_” he snaps, grabbing the bottle and taking a gasping swig, before holding it between his legs. 

“He’s crazy, your brother,” Stavros mutters, pulling Alexis in to place a rough kiss to her already bruised cheek, as if he wasn’t about to brand her like cattle. 

“Yes,” she quietly replies, quirking a small smile out the window as David tips the belladonna into the tequila. 

Their eyes meet in the mirror again.

“Yes, he is.” 

xxxxxx

It’s been an hour and he’s still conscious. 

He’s still conscious and currently peeing by the side of the road, singing ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ once again and twirling the keys in his hand. 

Alexis watches from the back seat while David presses his forehead into the wheel. His phone is dead in his lap, and he has zero bars out here in Deliverance-land anyway. 

“You sure can fucking pick ‘em.” 

“Shut up, David.”

He thinks they’re somewhere near Erie. He can feel the breeze from the lake. He’s honestly not sure how this will all play out when they reach the border and Stavros realizes they’re in New York and not Michigan. He’d really, _ really _ like to not be there when that particular epiphany dawns. 

“He should be passed out by now,” she whispers. “You didn’t give him enough.” 

“I gave him plenty, Alexis. It’s not my fault your boyfriend is built like a fucking Clydesdale. Give it a minute.” 

“Can’t you just, like, knock him out?” 

He looks around, eyes wide. “With _ what_?” 

“You know…” she wiggles her fingers and he gapes. 

“Seriously?” 

“Well, why not, David? You’re a witch!” 

“_So are you!_” 

She stares at him then, before slumping back in the seat and crossing her arms over her chest. “I never had half your talent.” 

“Yeah, well.” But there’s nothing to say. He’s not sure he has half of what he once had now either.

Silence settles like humidity, thick and heavy despite the chill. 

“How did you know all of that stuff about Greek drama anyway?” 

He decidedly doesn’t think of Sebastien, who approached his love of plays the same way he approached his photography: with pretension. “I dated a playwright once,” he lies. He’s not entirely sure she buys it, but he just doesn’t care. 

Stavros is… wrapping up, so to speak, and he tenses, attempting for once in his life to be ready for anything. 

“Just stay calm.” 

“I am calm,” he snaps. 

Stavros stumbles over to the car and climbs into the back seat. “Alexis?” 

“Yeah, babe?” Her voice wobbles and David’s heart breaks. 

“I love you so much,” he says, nearly crying, though David’s positive that’s more the tequila talking than any genuine human emotion. 

“I love you, too,” she replies. “C’mon, don’t do this. We can - we can run away together.” 

His large hands slide up her shoulders, fisting in her hair. “I love you so much,” he murmurs - even as he starts to choke her. 

“Stavros,” Alexis wheezes, pushing at his chest, and David is out of the car and into the backseat before he recall making the decision to do so. He throws himself on top of Stavros, getting one hand in his hair and tugging violently while the nails of his other hand dig into his arm. Stavros collapses on top of Alexis as David continues to pummel him. His fists don’t pack much punch, but it’s gotta be an A for effort at least. 

“David, David, wait. Wait,” Alexis manages. “He’s out. He finally passed out.” 

David stops and takes a slow breath, climbing off and attempting to lift the dead weight of Stavros from his sister. But when he does, she screams. 

“What? Where’s the bear!” Who the hell knows what’s out here in the woods?

“David! He’s dead!” 

For a moment, he confuses the ringing in his ears for the sound of his non-functioning phone. 

_ “What?” _

xxxxxx

Alexis has been attempting (actually very good) CPR for the last ten minutes while David paces on the side of the road. 

“How much did you give him?” she snaps. 

“I don’t know, Alexis. I wasn’t using a fucking measuring cup! He was trying to kill you.”

“Well you gave him too much.” 

He stops. “_You _ were the one telling me fifteen minutes ago that I didn’t give him enough!” He pinches the bridge of his nose, already feeling a headache coming on. “We have to go to the police. It was self-defense.” 

“What, the old slowly-poison-him-to-death-self-defense? Like they’ll believe _ that_.” 

He groans and kicks at a rock, thoroughly regretting it when it scuffs up his Rick Owens boots. “Why the hell do you have belladonna in your bag anyway?” 

She gets a coy smile. “Because if I didn’t tranq him, I’d never get any sleep.” 

It takes him a second to understand, but when it dawns, he does a full-body shiver. “Oh gross. You’re my sister. Don’t say shit like that. The town doesn’t have a decent therapist yet.” 

Alexis has thoroughly given up on CPR and is now just staring at him. David wonders what she’s feeling. He hadn’t bothered to ask how long she and Stavros were together. He honestly didn’t care, but he knows a little of what it’s like to be betrayed by someone you love. Granted, Sebastien had never tried to kill him, but there was a time when it felt like that outcome would have been welcome. 

Alexis shakes her head and stretches her arms, as if waking herself up. Indeed, when she meets David’s eyes, her gaze is filled with newfound resolve. “We’ll just - bring him home. Mom will know what to do,” she says with a little nod, like that will make this horrible plan run smoothly. 

He digs his fingers into his hair and has to make the conscious choice not to pull it out. “Oh you want to bring _ Mom _ into it? That’ll go _ really _ well. Alexis, we’re two hours from the border and you want to cross with a dead fucking body in the back seat?” 

“Obviously not, David. We’ll stick him in the trunk.” 

“Oh. My. God. Can you imagine _ this _ in prison?” he asks, gesturing up and down his body. She tilts her head, as if she’s actually considering it. 

She’s a terrible sister and David has missed her more than anything in this world. 

He swallows hard, the fight seeping out of him. “Help me get him in the trunk.” 

She claps her hands and crawls out of the backseat, grabbing one of Stavros’ arms as David gets the other. It takes a lot of grunting and cursing and more sweating than he’d like in this particular outfit, but they manage to dump him in the trunk with little ceremony.

“I didn’t mean to ruin everything,” she murmurs after a moment, nudging his shoulder. “I know you have the store. I just - I had no one else to turn to.” 

He sighs and slams the trunk shut. “Get in the car.”

They both slide in the front seat and David jams the keys into the ignition, but he doesn’t turn them. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Alexis looking at him. The ice he’s been holding around his heart like a barrier melts a bit. 

“It’ll be good to have you home.”

Their uneasy truce doesn’t last for long though. It’s a quiet drive to Buffalo, which allows David to envision all of the ways they could be arrested once they get there. 

“I heard that, like, if you put a bible on the dash, border patrol guys will be really nice to you,” Alexis offers, and David stares at her long enough to swerve the car. 

“And where do you expect us to get a bible at this hour?” It’s nearly dawn and, as his adrenaline wanes, every hour he’s been awake weighs on him further. He’s also hungry. 

Very hungry. 

“There are churches,” she offers with a small shrug. 

“I think we’d go up in flames even if we got our hands on one anyway.” 

Alexis concedes his point and they abandon the idea of the bible, but they do switch seats because David’s no idiot. And when they pull up to border patrol, his sister gives the man peering in through their window her most winning smile. 

He smiles back with a genial, “Hello, bon jour!” 

Alexis can usually talk her way out of a high stakes hostage situation, but then he thinks of what’s in the trunk and holds his breath. _ Usually. _At least they’d thought to cover her bruise with her hair and wipe the mascara streaks from her face. 

They get asked the usual questions: where did you go (_hell_), how long have you been gone (_years_), purpose of visit (_murder_), total value of goods you're bringing back (_my soul_), any liquor or cigarettes (_no, are you offering?_), are you bringing anything back for anyone (_c__ertainly fucking not_). 

They’re passed through with a wave and they don’t speak, they don’t move, they don’t breathe until the crossing is miles behind them. 

“Well, that went well!” she declares chipper as ever. 

They still have a long while yet, despite finally being in the right country, and David turns away and closes his eyes, willing his heart to settle for the first time since he got his sister’s call. His body sinks into a bone-deep exhaustion, pulling him further and further into the questionable leather that he can’t even muster up the energy to be grossed out by. 

He startles awake a few hours later, impressed by how much closer they are to home than he thought they’d be, not that he’d ever tell Alexis. Granted, it helps that she drives like Lewis fucking Hamilton in a Formula One Grand Prix. 

He’s driving during the last leg, just a couple of hours left, when Alexis gets a look on her face. It’s the kind of look that used to wind up with something broken and him grounded, despite the fact that he had nothing whatsoever to do with it. 

“What? I can hear you thinking. That’s never good.” 

She narrows her eyes and looks in the rearview mirror, as if she can see the cargo they carry. David feels nauseated. It had been approximately three blissful minutes since he’d thought of Stavros. 

“There’s a spell that brings people back, right? In the back of the book?” 

David tightens his hold on the steering wheel and doesn’t meet her eye. “Yes. I looked it up when Grandmom died.”

She looks at him then. Through him, almost. He shivers. 

“I didn’t know that,” she says sadly. 

“Yeah, well. I wasn’t exactly broadcasting it.” His palms are clammy on the leather. “It doesn’t matter if there is or not; Mom won’t do that.”

Alexis sees the technicality and pounces on it. “Won’t. Not can’t. 

“She’s at the solstice celebration. She’s on the committee!” he tries, but it sounds pathetic to his own ears. It’s no use, not when Alexis is on a tear like this. She’s been this way since she was fucking four. 

“Fine. Who needs Mom? We can.”

He’s already shaking his head. “No, nuh uh. It won’t be Stavros. It’ll be something dark. And unnatural.”

“Stavros already is dark and unnatural! I don’t care what comes back as as long as he comes back with a pulse!”

“Alexis, that is not a choice - ” 

“It’s our _ only _ choice!” Her shout echoes around the car, but David bites his lips, continuing to shake his head. There are things you do and things you don’t do when it comes to magic. 

This falls in the latter category. 

“Ugh, you never trust me!” she snaps. “You never take my advice, and I’m always the last person you turn to!” 

And David’s just _ done_. 

“_Trust _ you? You _ abandoned _ me. How could I turn to you when you were _ gone_? What advice could you have imparted when you were never around?” 

“Well, I’m sorry for having fun, David, with a selection of very confident international men. But I was always okay!” 

He looks around at their surroundings almost violently. “_Hello!_” 

Alexis almost seems to realize her mistake a moment too late and slides further down in her seat, but David isn’t letting her off that easy. 

“_I _was the one at the consulate sending you temporary passports and colored contact lenses whenever you needed them. I was the one - at home - _not _having fun, because I was constantly worried which East Asian palace Alexis was being held hostage in this week. Not Mom and Dad. _Me_.” 

“Well you didn’t have to worry about me,” she says quietly. 

“Well, I did,” he snaps. 

He thinks of the little girl who sat on the floor in front of the fireplace and lit a candle all by herself. Who never could quite wield the power she was born into. Who so desperately wanted to belong somewhere that she left to go everywhere. 

He makes a decision. 

He’s going to regret it immensely. 

“Fine, but if you leave me to do this on my own, I will turn you into a toad and I _ will not _ turn you back, do you understand?” 

She squeals and claps and is generally far too jovial for someone about to help raise a man from the dead, but whatever. They all cope in their own ways. 

“You’re a really good brother, David,” she whispers, putting her hand on his forearm and squeezing tightly. “Thanks for saving me.” 

He so wants to be mad at her. He wants to hate her for putting him in this position. Instead, he lets out a heavy sigh and puts his left hand on top of hers, squeezing back. 

“Thanks for letting me.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special shoutout to Emu for the border patrol knowledge and to Kiranerys42 for the joke about the bible. Original idea for it comes from Corb Lund.


	3. fire burn and cauldron bubble

By the time they pull up in front of the house, dusk is settling again and rain is pounding hard on the roof, because of course it is. It feels like he’s been in this car for approximately half his life, and David will need a minimum of three yoga sessions to straighten out his spine, along with a hot bath, an in-depth skincare routine, and at least twelve hours of sleep. 

But first - 

“David, help me with him,” Alexis snaps, opening the door and stepping out into downpour. “I can’t get a dead body into the house by myself.” 

David groans and stretches his arms over his head, staring up at the house through the water-streaked windshield. He can already hear Alexis pop the trunk and if he drags his feet long enough, maybe she really will get Stavros in the house on her own. She always was tenacious. 

“David!” she yells, banging against the roof of the car 

“Ugh, fine!” He opens his door and steps into the rain, gasping at the cold drops that are already making their way in between his sweater and his skin. He knew he should have chosen a different outfit to rescue Alexis in. 

They each take hold of an arm, hoisting him up and out of the car with little grace or dignity, dragging him through the back door and into the kitchen, dumping him unceremoniously onto the table. 

“Watch his balls,” she grunts. 

_"You _ watch them.”

They step back, chests heaving and clothes making puddles on the floor. 

Alexis pushes her wet hair back from her face and straightens, as if fortifying herself. “I’ll get a towel.” 

“I’ll get the book,” he mutters. 

He toes his boots off and strips off his sweater, which seems to have gained ten pounds in the rain. With less care than he’s ever taken with any of his clothing, he drops it over the bannister, listening to the steady drip of the water from the hanging sleeves. 

_ Book. Right. _

He heads into the greenhouse where his mother last left it, but then his phone vibrates in his pocket, pulling him up short. 

_ Oh shit, Stevie. _He pulls it out and swipes on her message. 

**[Stevie]**   
**Are you dead?**

He honestly considers it for a moment. 

** _Practically. _ **

Realizing she needs more than that to go on, he elaborates: 

** _Just got back. Loose ends to tie up. Can you hang onto her for one more night?_ **

The reply is immediate: 

**[Stevie]**   
**Such a hardship.**

She sends back a selfie, cheersing him with a large glass of wine as Winnie curls up on her lap. He smiles and feels an ache in his chest at the thought that he might lose that if they fuck this up. Before he can think better of it, he gives in to his melancholia and the saccharine thoughts that follow in its wake: 

** _You’re a good friend. _ **

“When are Mom and Dad coming back?” Alexis calls from the kitchen, and he returns to find her toweling off her hair and tossing him a dry one. He barely catches it with the hand not clutching the book to his chest.

“Tomorrow. So we need to wake this asshole up now and send him on his way, because Mom won’t bat an eye at a dead body in the house, but Dad might take issue.” 

Alexis scrunches her nose but turns to Stavros and rolls up the sleeves of her dress, ignoring the fact that they’re wide and just fall right back down. 

His phone vibrates again in his pocket again: 

**[Stevie]**   
**You’re being weird. What’s wrong?**

He sighs. She knows him too well. Yes, things _ are _really fucking weird, but he can’t tell Stevie that. He turns the phone off and shoves it back in his pocket, dropping the book on the table next to Stavros’ head with a thud. 

He hasn’t used his mother’s spell book in years and anxiety pools in the pit of his gut, making his throat tight and his hands tremble. Alexis grabs a cloth toolkit from a drawer, as she’s seen their mother do countless times, and unfurls it, revealing a (admittedly terrifying) set of silver instruments: knives, needles, scalpels, blades, and… forks? 

They stare at the tools and then at each other. 

“This’ll be fine,” Alexis says, squeaking slightly. 

“Uh huh,” he replies, definitely, totally, 100% convinced. “Unbutton his shirt. I need to get some candles.” 

He leaves her to her task and disappears into the pantry, which has a shelf for just such an occasion. He grabs two pewter candlesticks and two cream-colored candles to place in them, heading back to the kitchen, but slowing when he hears Alexis murmuring. 

“Okay, Stavros, I will get you out of this, but when I do, like, we are definitely breaking up. It is over.” 

He pokes his head around the corner in time to watch her slap his face. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” 

“Nothing!” she jumps, adjusting Stavros’ head upright from where she had hit it to the side. 

“Mkay.” He places the candles at the head and foot of the table, striking a match and ignoring the way Alexis watches him. “What?” he finally snaps. 

“Nothing! I just don’t know why you’re using something you don’t need,” she says with a pointed look at the match still smoking in his hand. 

“Play in traffic, please.” 

He hasn’t used their mother’s spell book in years, and the pages feel coarse and fragile beneath his hands as he flips further and further to the back. 

“Okay, are you _ sure _ you want to do this?” he asks one final time, because once they start, they cannot stop. 

She looks down at Stavros and back up with grim determination. “Absolutely.” 

“Okay. Here we fucking go,” he mutters, holding the bounded sage over the flame as he reads from the book. “Lips pursed, emit wind over tongue in motion - ” 

Alexis snorts. “Emit wind.” 

“Grow up.” 

“You first.” 

“Tongue in motion, teeth on edge,” he continues, glaring at her and placing the sage in a crucible. He hovers his hands over Stavros’ body per the instructions and flutters his tongue, letting out a low purring noise, which Alexis tries but it comes out as more of a raspberry. “No, no, like this.” He demonstrates and she tries again, only slightly better. “Good enough.” He looks back down at the book. “Touch bounded smudge of blue sage with braided wheat straw. Insert needles through eyes of corpse.” 

“I beg your pardon?” Alexis blurts and even David needs to take a moment to pause. Oh, this is not what he signed up for when Alexis Rose was born into the world. “Through the eye?” she screeches. 

“In the eye.” Oh this is so fucking gross. With shaking hands, David goes to pull back Stravros’ eyelid, but a clap of thunder rattles the house, making them both scream and drop their needles. 

“I think we should wait for Mom,” Alexis whines, bending down and grabbing the needle, clutching it to her chest like a lethal teddy bear.

“Oh you want to pop him into the freezer next to the frozen margaritas? I don’t think he’s going to stay_ fresh, Alexis._” He flaps his hands towards the cabinets. “Get me something white to write a star on his chest. Toot sweet.” 

She groans, but stomps off and David rests his hands on the table and drops his head. How the fuck did he end up here? Until yesterday, his biggest concern was avoiding Roland and Jocelyn’s overzealous attempts to get him involved with the Halloween festival. 

Alexis bounces back in, shaking a can of whipped cream. “This is all I could find.” 

“That’s… surprisingly perfect.” He takes off the lid and starts to trace a star on Stavros’ (impressively toned) chest. The asshole may be a dead psychopath, but David can appreciate the results of a steady fitness routine. “Okay, we’re supposed to say,” he looks at the book, “Black as night, erase death from our sight. White as light, mighty Hecate make it right.” He dips a finger in the whip cream star and pops it in his mouth. 

“Ew, David!” 

He ignores her. “Ready?” 

She nods and they begin to recite the spell together, needles in hand once more. “Black as night, erase death from our sight. White as light, mighty Hecate make it right.” They stare at each other on opposite sides of the body until their words sync up and the cadence of the spell falls into something almost musical. He gives her a nod and they reach down to pull back Stavros’ eyelids - 

Only to find that his eyes are already open. 

“Oh my God!” David blurts, dropping the needle once more as Alexis gasps. 

“Stavros?” 

The man gives a slow blink and turns toward her voice, smiling softly, before lunging and getting a hand around her throat. She collapses under his weight and he follows her to the ground. 

“Alexis!” David turns around and grabs for the nearest thing, which happens to be a pot hanging from a hook beneath the cabinets. Stavros is yelling something about wanting to marry Alexis, but David guesses that choking her to death is not the way to go about it. 

He brings the pot down on the back of Stavros’ head, loosening his grip on his sister’s neck and sending him sprawling to the floor. He hits him again for good measure, wincing and gagging as he hears a crack. 

“Fuck,” he pants, staring at the man now bleeding from the head on their kitchen floor. “Are you all right?” he asks, reaching down and offering Alexis a hand. 

She nods and takes it, letting him pull her to her feet. 

He drops the pan on the counter and turns her to him. “Lemme see,” he murmurs, brushing her hair from her face and gently taking her chin in his palm so he can inspect her neck. He carefully pushes on the red marks and she stiffens. “Tender?” 

“Mm hm.” She’s staring at him as if she’s never seen him before, with a look that’s soft and fond and… loving. It’s unsettling. 

“Okay,” he says, clearing his throat. “Well, I think it’s safe to say that tonight’s experiment in resurrection is over. Now,” he claps his hands and stares down at the (once again) dead body, “have you ever used a shovel?” 

She blinks at him blankly, their… whatever that was, their _ moment_, long over. 

“Um, have _ you_?”

Turns out, to the surprise of absolutely no one, David and Alexis are both terrible at manual labor. 

“You have the _ worst _taste in men,” David groans, dropping the shovel to the side and deeming whatever depth they’re at to be deep enough. 

“Pot calling the kettle black, you dick,” she fires back, dropping her shovel as well. 

He’s utterly and completely soaked through, silk briefs too, and Alexis’ five inch heels have been abandoned in the mud. They roll Stavros into the pit and start to dump the mud back on top of him, packing it down with their feet when they get the top layer of grass down. They’ve buried him on the edge of the garden patio that no one uses because the Roses don’t really do the outdoors. 

David’s teeth are chattering as he bends down to get the flashlight he had left on the sodden grass, and when he stands, Alexis’ arms are wrapping around him from behind.

“Oh,” he says, because he’s not sure what else to say. He can feel her pressing her cheek against his shoulder blades. 

“Thank you, David,” she murmurs. He nods and squeezes her hands where they’re clasped across his chest. “What are we going to tell Mom and Dad?” 

He sighs and closes his eyes, turning his face up to the night sky. "Nothing." 

The rain has stopped. 

“We tell them nothing.” 

xxxxxx

David doesn’t recall falling asleep. He doesn’t even remember how he got to his room, let alone his bed. He had stood under the hot spray of the shower for what felt like hours, his wet clothes a cold pile on the floor, but everything after that is a blur. 

He emerges from the pile of blankets just long enough to check his phone. It’s almost 11am, and he tries to figure out what day of the week it is. Sunday sounds vaguely familiar. He thinks yesterday was Saturday, which means he picked up Alexis on Friday. 

_ Alexis_. 

He pushes his face into the pillow if only to hide his smile. She’s finally home. 

The smile fades quickly, though, when he remembers the price they had to pay to get her here. 

After much internal negotiation, he eventually throws the covers back and pads downstairs, making coffee but grumbling while he does so because his father isn’t around to do it for him.

He sits down with his mug at the table and looks out the window towards the patio. Luckily the storm made the grass look rough all over. You’d never know they buried a dead body out there twelve hours ago. 

He pulls out his phone and fires off a text to Stevie, asking when is a good time to come get Winnie and how many bottles of wine did she take from the store. 

**[Stevie]**   
**1pm. Six.**

** _SIX??????_ **   
****

**[Stevie]**  
**Kidding. Two.** **How’s Alexis?**

At that moment, that back door opens and Alexis comes in decked out in running gear. “Morning!” she chirps. David grunts in return. 

** _Well enough for physical exertion at this godforsaken hour. _ **

**[Stevie]**   
**David, it’s basically noon.**

He ignores Stevie and takes another sip of his coffee, thoroughly denying that the feeling making itself right at home in his chest is guilt.

Alexis grabs a glass and fills it with water, leaning against the counter. “So, now what?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, what happens now? What do we do?” 

David shrugs. “We go about our lives. I check to make sure my store is still standing. I pick up my dog from my best friend - ” 

“Winnie!” Alexis trills, clapping her hands together. She’s never met the puppy, but David has sent photos. So. Many. Photos. 

“You do… whatever it is you actually do. We pretend nothing happened last night,” he continues sternly. “Because it didn’t.”

“Right,” she agrees, and David wonders not for the first time if the biggest liability of this whole thing will turn out to be Alexis’ complete inability to keep a secret. 

Before he can give voice to his fears (or have a full-blown panic attack), tires crunch the gravel, and both David and Alexis turn towards the front yard to watch the old hulking black Lincoln pull into the driveway. 

Christ, he hasn’t had enough coffee to deal with this yet. 

Pushing himself to standing, he attempts to get his hair in order as Alexis fidgets in the hallway. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen her so nervous. Even when she had a gun held to her neck. 

The front door opens and he moves towards the foyer, bracing for whatever insanity trails in his parents’ wake. 

“David dear,” his mother calls, “whose dilapidated Thunderbird is that in the driveway?”

“Mkay, it’s a Mustang. And it’s not mine,” he replies, stepping aside to reveal his sister. 

“Oh,” his mother breathes. 

“Mother,” she murmurs, raising her chin defiantly like she’s a teenager who’s just come home past curfew instead of a grown woman who’s returned for the first time in years. 

Their mother steps forward and air kisses her on each cheek, which is about as cuddly as David has ever seen her. “Welcome home, Alexis.” 

Alexis manages a tight smile and their mother hones in on the bruise on her cheek. “A little mugwort will fix that right up.” And with that, she disappears into the pantry, leaving the remaining Roses staring at each other. 

“Hi, Dad.” 

“Hi, sweetheart,” he replies warmly. He always was the more affectionate of their parents, awkward and stilted though it usually is. Still, he wraps his arms around Alexis and hugs her tight, before pulling away and gently touching her cheek. “He’ll get what he deserves,” he murmurs and Alexis locks eyes with David over their father’s shoulder. 

He clenches his jaw and arranges his features into an expression that hopefully says, ‘don’t you fucking dare.’ 

“Well, kids,” their father starts, clapping his hands together, “family dinner tonight? First time in a while! David, invite Stevie over.”

But before he can address the fact that they don’t have enough alcohol in the house to have both Stevie and Alexis under one roof, his mother is calling from the kitchen:

“Children, why are there shovels on the back porch?” 

Alexis’ eyes go wide. It was her job to put them back in the shed. 

Jesus, if they make it through this, it’ll be a goddamn miracle. 

xxxxxx

To say David had been skeptical when Stevie convinced him to go to the annual pet adoption fair a few months ago is the understatement of the century. As someone who found joy in the finer, fragiler things in life, introducing a dog to the concept of cashmere seemed ludicrous, and yet - 

Winnie had curled up in his lap and in his heart and never really left. 

Which is why David is driving as fast as possible to the motel because he honestly just needs someone to hold, and the fact that his _dog_ is the only thing that will let him is just sad on so many levels. Also, after essentially an uninterrupted 36 hours in her presence, David needs a break from Alexis. It’s tough to go from no contact to living together once again. They’re different people now than they were when she left. 

The motel is sort of cute in a rundown, small town, only-option-for-miles kind of way. David pulls into the lot and gets out of the car, face splitting into a smile he so rarely allows as the office door opens and Winnie comes bounding over to him, overly large paw tripping on the gravel. 

“There’s my girl,” he murmurs into the crease behind her ear as she hops up in an attempt to get as close as possible. Giving in, he picks her up with a grunt and cradles her in his arms, feeling the tension of the last couple of days slowly begin to seep from his body. 

“She’s been waiting impatiently,” Stevie says as she wanders over and David offers her a grateful grin. 

“Thank you.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Stevie scratches Winnie’s chin and the puppy rewards her with a lick. 

David puts Winnie on the ground and watches her run around in circles, chasing after scattered leaves. “You’ve been invited to dinner.” 

“Oh really? I’m not on the menu, am I?” 

“It’s cute that you still think that joke’s funny.” He shakes his head. “I still can’t believe you told Jake and Mutt my family are cannibals.” 

She barks out a laugh. “Please, that was one of my crowning achievements. Word spread _ fast._” 

“Stevie! They called a town meeting about it!” 

She laughs harder. “I know.”

“Unbelievable,” he mutters, but he has to bite his lips to hide a smile. 

She was always so blasé about the whole witch thing. She had moved to town to live with her aunt a year or so before Alexis ditched the place. One day, she just asked, “Is it true?” and he replied, “Would it matter?” She started shaking her head ‘no’ and he turned her hair orange before she stopped. They snapped some photos before she demanded he turn it back, which he did without argument. They’ve been inseparable ever since. 

She made living here easier than Alexis ever did, despite the fact that they both had the same general disdain for the town and its people. With Stevie, it was bearable, though, getting him through some of the darker days in the aftermath of Sebastien’s abandonment. 

“What can I bring tonight?” 

“Booze,” he says without even thinking. “All of the booze you can find.”

She agrees to come over around 7pm armed with no less than three bottles of something with a high proof, and so he heads to the store to make sure things have been restocked properly. He’d trust Stevie with his life, but perhaps not his life’s work, and so he checks on his baby and ends up just reading a book while sitting in a chair with his feet propped up on a box in the back room, Winnie curled up on her dog bed, napping beside him. 

The silence is soothing, but he retains none of the words he’s reading. His brain is too full of things he’d rather forget. 

He follows the loose thread down a rabbit hole from which there seems no escape, running through the past two days and trying to think if there was something he could have done differently to end up with a better outcome. David Rose is not a killer. David Rose sells a carefully curated selection of products from local vendors on consignment in a one stop retail environment. He doesn’t haul dead bodies across the border to bury in his yard with tools his carefully lotioned hands have never, ever touched before. 

He waits until the sun dips beyond the mountains in the distance before heading back to the house with Winnie in tow. 

There’s probably a pot of chili stirring itself on the stove that David is sure they’ll find marginally edible. When it became clear that no household staff were going to stay on for longer than it took for something to go bump in the night, Johnny Rose quickly corralled his family into learning how to cook, a task that some took to better than others (Moira got as far as cutting a single carrot). David can whip up an entire Italian feast should he so choose, which he really only does on the rare occasion he has the house to himself. 

He parks the car and stomps up the stairs, throwing the door open and allowing Winnie to gallop in first. 

“David!” Alexis whines, “Mom keeps using too much magic on the stove and it’s already almost blown up twice!” 

He stops in the foyer and groans towards the ceiling. 

He should have stayed in fucking Ohio.

xxxxxx

Stevie had shown up shortly after David did with a bottle of vodka, a bottle of bourbon, and a bottle of Pinot Noir because she’s the best and David loves her dearly although he’ll never tell her that. 

For those keeping score, the Pinot is long gone and there’s a significant dent in the vodka. Stevie is sipping the bourbon while Alexis nurses a dirty martini. David doesn’t even know what he’s drinking because his tongue went numb an hour ago, but for the first time in years, the people he loves (or at least tolerates) are all under one roof and that’s cause for celebration. Or at least for drunkenness. 

They’re on the front porch, and Winnie is curled up on his feet, keeping his toes warm, while Alexis attempts to convince them both that she can accurately read palms. 

“No, no, no, this is serious!” she exclaims, grabbing for his hand again. 

“You don’t know how to do this,” he retorts. 

“Yes I do! An old lady in Marrakech taught me. Okay, stop squirming.” 

“Your hands are clammy.” 

“Well yours are dry!” 

He gasps. “That’s not physically possible! I own a lotion store!” 

“Children!” Stevie yells, sloshing her bourbon in the process. Alexis uses the distraction to snatch David’s hand and pull it to her face. 

“I see…” Alexis holds her breath for dramatic effect, “a man.” 

“Oooh,” Stevie teases, squirming in her chair, but David merely rolls his eyes. 

“Uh huh.” 

“I see a man in your future and he is _ gorgeous_.” 

“Is this my future or yours you’re reading?” 

“Ugh, David!” she swats his arm. “I’m swearing off men for a while. Just some me time. Become the girl boss I was always meant to be.”

“Hm, that’s nice, tell me more about this supposedly gorgeous man.” 

She smiles coyly. “He’s a button.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” 

“And, oooh-la-la, he is big.” 

Before he can even begin to process how gross it is to have his _ sister _ tell him that the man of his future is rocking some major BDE, Stevie lets out a cackle just as his mother crashes out the door, bottle in hand. Oh good, because that’s what this situation needs: Moira Rose.

“How convivial!” she declares, bottle swinging in a careful arc that may take out the porch light before the evening is through. 

“Where’s Dad?” 

“Oh I’m afraid he tuckered himself out having you children home. He’s retired to the boudoir.”

“Ew,” Alexis mouths at him and he can’t help but smile. 

“What are we playing?” His mother asks, perching on the edge of a rocking chair, the feather in today’s wig making her look like a crow. “I’ve come to the realization that I’ve not been a very good parent, so I’d like to make up for that now.” 

“By playing a drinking game?” Alexis asks. 

David is just staring wide-eyed at Stevie because this is not how he thought the night was going to end, with his mother attempting to make up for three decades of aloofness and narcissism. David’s used to it by now. It’s almost… comforting, in a way. It’s made the times she has deigned to grace them with her blessing all the more special, like that smile after that first lit candle. No, this isn’t how he thought it was going to go and certainly not how he wanted it to.

“Okay, okay,” Alexis says, “Two truths and a lie.” 

David and Stevie groan. 

“No, it’ll be fun! Kay, Mother, I’m going to say three facts, one of them is a lie. You have to guess which one.” 

“Okay, this should be easy.” 

“And no cheating with, like, magic or whatever.” 

“Alexis, dear, I’ve told you kids time and time again, telepathy does not run in the family.” 

_ Yeah_, _ jury’s still out on that one_. He thinks he’s had enough alcohol when even his thoughts have a distinct slur. 

“Okay, my eyes are brown, I am basically sample size, and one time, I escaped from a Thai drug lord’s car trunk by bribing him with sex.”

Their mother sighs and leans back in the chair. “Alexis, try to make it a little more challenging. I know your eyes are aqua.”

Stevie makes a noise that sounds like a squawk, and even he’s trying to withhold a rather undignified snort. Moira Rose is nothing if not surprising. 

In fact, she takes a swig straight from the bottle, something he’s never, _ ever _seen her do, and he’s about to call her out on it, to make a joke at her expense, but then she turns the bottle in her hand and something cold and sharp and terrifying grips his heart. 

“Where’d you get this?” he asks, voice too high. Heart too fast. Winnie scrambles to her feet as if she knows something’s wrong. 

His mother frowns. “What?” 

He grabs the bottle and shows the label to Alexis. It’s the same bottle of tequila that Stavros was drinking that night in the car. 

She pales considerably, which is something because she uses tanning beds on the regular. “Mother, where did you get this bottle?” she demands.

Their mother shrugs, all nonchalance. “Someone left it on the porch.” 

_ What? _

His eyes are so wide, they feel like they’re about to fall out of his head. He turns to look at Alexis, but she’s already moving, grabbing the bottle from his hands and throwing it over the railing, smashing it on the ground. 

Silence descends, broken only by the harsh panting of their collective breath and the rabbiting of his heart. 

“David?” Stevie starts to ask, but he holds out a shaking hand, silencing whatever it was she’d been about to say. 

“Everything all right?” his father asks, standing in the doorway wrapped in a robe. 

“What’s going on here?” his mother asks, eyes narrowing, all evidence of intoxication clear from her expression. Moira Rose is oblivious to many things, but not something like this. “Something’s going on. I can smell it.” 

A broom clatters to the ground in the corner and Alexis yelps, causing Winnie to whine.

Oh fuck, that’s not good. 

“Broom fell,” his mother murmurs. “Company’s coming.” Her eyes bore holes into his, and he can’t help but clear his throat and look away. 

“We had a problem. We handled it.” 

“Son, I think we deserve an explanation,” their father says from the doorway and their mother moves to stand by his side, a united front. 

He’s sometimes envious of their relationship, but Alexis moves toward him and he can feel her trembling against his arm. For a moment, they’re eight and ten all over again. 

It’s fitting in a way: Johnny and Moira on one side of the porch, David and Alexis on the other, Stevie in the middle. 

Lines in the sand. 

When it becomes clear that no one will be offering any further clarification, their mother puts a hand on their father’s chest. “Come on, John. The children have made their bed.” 

David swallows hard and watches as they disappear into the house. Alexis trembles harder beside him, but when he goes to put a hand on her back, she stalks to the edge of the porch and stares at the shattered glass scattered upon the path. 

Stevie blinks owlishly at them both. “Guys, what the hell - ?” 

“It’s not possible, David,” Alexis snaps, interrupting her. “So don’t even think it.” 

“Then tell me, Alexis, how did _ that _bottle get here?” 

But she merely shakes her head over and over. “It’s not possible.” 

He looks over at the patio, at the ground next to it that hides all manner of secrets. The heavy feeling in his chest claws at his lungs and tears at his heart, suffocating him slowly. 

“I’m going to bed,” he announces. He frankly doesn’t give a shit what Alexis does. She can stay here staring at a broken tequila bottle all night if she wants to. He turns to Stevie. “Stay here. You shouldn’t be driving.” 

She looks at him keenly. “And you shouldn’t be alone.” 

Sometimes he really does hate how well she knows him. How clearly she _ sees _ him. “Come on,” he murmurs, holding out a hand and helping her up from the rickety rocking chair. He offers Alexis one last glance before he disappears inside, padding upstairs and feeling like his legs have fifty pound weights strapped to them. 

It’s not the first time Stevie has crashed here after a night of drunken debauchery, but it is the first time she’s shared his bed, despite the plethora of other rooms on offer. At least, it’s the first time ever since that night so long ago when they realized quite quickly that they valued their friendship over any sort of intimate affair. 

She curls up beside him and stares at him across the pillow. He studiously avoids her gaze, choosing instead to try and memorize the thread count, focusing on the comforting weight of Winnie at the foot of the bed. 

“David, what’s going on?” she quietly asks, but he shakes his head, throat going tight.

He can’t drag her into this, too. He’s already too tired from trying to protect Alexis. If something were to happen to Stevie as well… 

A single tear tracks down his cheek. 

“Nothing,” he says, turning over and giving her his back. “Go to sleep.” 

xxxxxx

David wakes feeling like his skull has been flipped inside out. Which is definitely a thing. He’s seen the back of the spell book. 

He blinks his eyes open, cursing the morning light, but the other side of the bed is empty. So is the foot, but Winnie always did like Stevie more. He honestly can’t be mad at her about it. 

He throws the covers back and only stumbles slightly as he stands. Mixing wine and vodka was not one of his finer moves. He’s in his thirties; he should know better by now. It shocks him that in three hundred years, no one has found a spell for a hangover. 

When he gets downstairs, he finds Stevie nursing a cup of coffee at the island in the kitchen, reading something in the paper. They stare at each other for a moment, but any talk of what happened last night remains firmly buried, not unlike other things. 

“Are we the only ones up?” he manages, voice cracking. 

“I haven’t seen your parents,” she says, raising her mug, “but someone made coffee.” 

“And Alexis?” He’s almost afraid to ask. 

Stevie’s gaze tracks over to the front of the wraparound porch - where Alexis is in some complicated yoga move. “She’s been doing shit like that for almost an hour.”

“Gross.” He dislikes his sister for many reasons, but perhaps the main one is her ability to drink copiously and somehow avoid the consequences. He begins opening and closing drawers, looking for where his parents keep the over the over-the-counter meds. Or, more accurately, where his father hides the over-the-counter meds from his mother so she doesn’t exceed the recommended dosage.

A whine draws his attention, and he turns to find Winnie sitting patiently by the back door, waiting to be let out. 

“I’m coming,” he murmurs, limping over (because his hangover is so bad, his body hurts literally everywhere) and opening the door. But Winnie doesn’t move. “What’s wrong? Go on,” he urges, but she merely backs away a couple of steps and whines some more. “Suit yourself.” He lets the door shut once more, muttering “Weird dog” under his breath as he pours himself a coffee. Caffeine is needed if he’s going to continue his hunt for painkillers. 

Naturally, Alexis chooses that moment to throw open the front door and practically prance into the kitchen. 

“Good morning,” she greets, all sunshine and rainbows, evidence of her mini-breakdown last night long gone. David and Stevie give her matching grunts in return. “Where are Mom and Dad?” 

“I don’t know. I care more about where the advil is at the moment,” he replies, slamming a drawer and thoroughly regretting the noise as his head throbs. 

Stevie moves over to the window, something on the counter catching her eye as she goes, and Winnie whines again, so Alexis goes over and holds the back door open. 

Again, she doesn’t move. “What’s wrong with her?” 

David pauses in his search and watches his dog carefully, worry beginning to inch up his back and chip away at his hangover. “I don’t know,” he says. “She won’t go outside.” He may need to call Ted.

“Um, maybe it’s the guy out there,” Stevie says from the window.

David and Alexis glance at each other. “What guy?” he asks. 

“The guy under the roses,” she says, sipping her coffee. “PS when did you grow those?” 

“_What? _” Alexis runs over to the window and slams a hand against the glass. David is right on her heels, hooking his chin over her shoulder. “I don’t see him.”

“Yeah, he’s right there.” Stevie points. “Do you - you guys don’t see him?” 

“Are you still drunk?” David asks, but she was lucid last night and the comment sounds desperate on his tongue. He wishes she was still drunk. 

“Ugh, where?” Alexis snaps. 

“By the roses!” Stevie cries, pointing. “Which, by the way, were definitely not there yesterday.” 

“Oh shit,” he murmurs, before looking at Alexis. “We need to get Mom. Now.” 

Stevie grabs his arm before he can go anywhere. “But she left.” 

“What do you mean? They just got back!” His voice has gone shrieky, and he just doesn’t care. 

“Yeah,” Stevie says, heading over to the counter and holding up the piece of paper she just read. “She and your dad apparently left early this morning.” 

He strides over and snatches the note from her hand. 

** _Children, _ **

** _Leaving like this is a harsh lesson, we realize, but one you must learn on your own. Clean up your own plights. _ **

** _Love, _ **   
** _Mummy and Dad_ **

“She fucking would,” he mutters, balling up the paper in his fist and pressing it to his forehead. “Okay,” he says, more to himself than anyone else. “Okay. Stevie, you need to go.” 

Noise explodes: 

“David!” 

“What? Why?!” 

“Why does she have to go?!” 

He throws up a hand in his sister’s face and focuses solely on Stevie’s indignant one. “Because I don’t know what the hell is going on and I don’t want you here for it, okay?” 

“David!” Alexis yells again but he shushes her, grabs Stevie’s hand, and pulls her into the kitchen, closing his eyes. 

_Plausible deniability._

Stevie's nails dig into his hand. “David, you need to start explain - ”

“Because I’m worried, okay? I don’t know what’s going on and I’m worried and I don’t want you in this house.” 

She crosses her arms over her chest, frowning at him severely. “It’s a witchy thing?” 

He swallows. _It's for her own good. _“Solely a witchy thing.” 

She stares at him and taps her foot, and even he’s surprised by the fierce of protectiveness that’s bubbling up. Though given all that’s happened with Alexis over the past few days, he’s pretty sure that’s his new baseline. 

“Ugh, fine,” she relents. “I’m pissed I’m getting booted, but... it is kind of sweet.” 

“Ew, never say _ that _ again.” Okay, this is familiar territory. But then she smiles at him, and it’s soft. Stevie Budd is not soft. 

“Promise. Also, I do have a motel to run. I got an email this morning that someone booked online for today." It's a lame excuse to leave, and he knows it. And she knows he knows it. She rolls her eyes and shakes off the sentiment, picking up her coffee once more. "The mug is coming with me, though,” she says, as she heads for the door. “Check in, yeah? I know it’s a witchy thing and you’re witches, but…” 

He grins lopsidedly. “Is this your way of saying _ you’re _ worried about _ me_?” 

“Absolutely not,” she replies, but her sass lacks its usual snark. “Where the hell did you get that idea?” 

He waits until she’s safely in her car and the car is halfway down the driveway before turning back to find Alexis watching him. 

“David, I think we have a problem.” 

He almost laughs. 

Almost. 

“No shit.” 

xxxxxx

The rose bush winds its way up the trellis at the corner of the patio, spindly tendrils seizing the wood in an almost violent manner, gripping hard and holding fast. The blooms themselves are large and vivid, and they would be beautiful if their origins weren’t quite so… homicidal. 

He will deal with that once he closes his store for the day and finishes leaving his parents multiple voicemails demanding they return. At least the shower helped his headache lessen from a loud roar to a dull ache. 

He comes down the stairs, stopping at the bottom and watching Winnie whimper by the back door. He needs to get her away from the house since she refuses to go into the yard. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Alexis asks as she comes into the kitchen, holding a bushel of roses. 

“Um, to the store I own. What the hell happened to you?” He looks her up and down, hair askew, arms covered in scratches. 

“Oh, you know, just some yard work.” 

He stares at her. “You’ve never done yard work in your life.”

“Well,” she dumps the flowers onto the counter, attempting to arrange them in some way that might be described as ‘neat.’ “Mom always did want a rose garden.”

“That’s not funny.” 

“I thought they’d look good in the window of your store.” 

“Absolutely fucking not. I don’t want some _ haunted _roses given to you by your dead boyfriend in my store. I’ve already smudged the space. I don’t want to have to bring in an exorcist, too.” 

She bites her lip and looks at the floor, picking at one of the superficial wounds on her arm. “Do you really think it was Stavros?” 

“Who the hell else would it be, Alexis? Stevie said she saw a man. Stevie’s not crazy.” 

“And something’s wrong with Winnie - ”

“I know,” he snaps. God, does he know. He looks at the puppy, who continues to stare out the window, whimpering occasionally. 

“I saw the tips of his shoes,” she murmurs, and he steps closer, yes, to hear better, but also because:

“What the fuck?” 

She nods, looking younger than even the age she says she is. “I’d recognize those knockoff Ferragamos anywhere.”

“Jesus Christ,” he heads for the door, giving Winnie a quick cuddle before he opens it.

“Wait - they’re gone now, David!” 

But he bounds out anyway, stalking over to the now-mangled bush and searching the ground for anything resembling a man rising from the dead. Like he knows what the hell that looks like. He won’t even watch zombie movies. His nightmares get too bad. 

Seventy-two hours ago his life was boring, but it was his. He had his store, which he’s now late to open. He had his puppy, who now seems just as traumatized as he is. He had his parents, who’ve skedaddled off to parts unknown, leaving him to clean up a mess he wanted no hand in to begin with. 

Anger spiking, he picks up the shears Alexis had dropped and begins to hack away at the roses, cursing Stavros Demetriou with every fiber of his being. Tears begin to prick his eyes, and he’s so far gone, he doesn’t even care that the thorns are getting caught on his Stella McCartney sweater.

“Kinda late for roses, isn’t it?” someone says behind him and he startles, fumbling the shears and yelping as his thumb catches on something sharp. “Shit, sorry,” the stranger says, hurrying over and somehow conjuring a handkerchief to press to his bleeding thumb. 

Who the hell still carries a handkerchief?

“Um, can I help you with something?” he manages, hissing as the stranger presses harder. 

“I hope so,” the man says, stepping back and allowing David to finally get a good look at him. 

His eyes are kind, but his expression is hard. _ Oh. _David didn’t know it was possible for your heart to leap and plummet at the same time. 

Maybe there’s a spell for that. 

“I’m Special Agent Brewer. I’d like to ask you a few questions.” 


	4. by the pricking of my thumbs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alexis might start to seem a little OOC, but she’s only a little bit Alexis. (I'm so sorry, I'll see myself out.)

So. David might have been lying when he said love at first sight didn’t exist. 

If only he didn’t look (and feel) like roadkill. 

“Huh, what?” 

The man huffs out a laugh. It might be a bit teasing? “I said I’m Special Agent Patrick Brewer, out of the Crown Attorney Office in Toronto.” 

_ Patrick Brewer. _That’s a nice name. 

“You, uh, you sure are a long way from home, Officer.” David feels the weight of the shears in his uninjured, but limp hand. His head is throbbing and so is his thumb and possibly his lungs? In fact, he may be dying. It’s getting harder and harder to breathe. 

Agent Brewer squints his eyes into the sun reflected off the water. “Yeah. I was kind of hoping to talk to your sister, Alexis. If she’s around. She may have some information on a case I’m working on.”

“Uh, sure. Yeah, I’ll get her,” he says steadily, despite the fact that his heart is banging a bass beat against his sternum. He starts towards the house, shears dragging behind him like that teddy bear he used to own when he was little. “Um, how did you know that I was her brother?” 

“Lucky guess. I guess.” He offers an entirely too charming smile, and David finds himself smiling in return before he remembers that this is a _ cop _and said cop is standing exactly where he and his sister buried a body three days ago. 

“Um, why don’t you come inside?” Okay, that definitely didn’t come out steady. 

Agent Brewer nods, though, and begins to follow him up the path to the front door. God knows what state Alexis left the kitchen in.

“House party?” he asks, and David looks over his shoulder. 

“Sorry?” 

Agent Brewer nods back to the smashed tequila bottle on the path. 

“Oh. Was it the liquor bottle or the Balenciaga bags under my eyes that gave it away?”

Agent Brewer laughs and ducks his head. David frowns and tries to tell his flip-flopping stomach to calm the fuck down. 

He leads him into the foyer and adds the broken bottle to the growing list of messes he has to clean up. 

“I think she’s just upstairs. I’ll get her.” He turns and tries to hustle up the stairs while looking like he’s _ not _ hustling up the stairs, which is harder than it sounds for someone who’s practically vibrating out of his skin and not great with exercise to begin with. 

He leaves Agent Brewer in the foyer and doesn’t realize until he reaches the third floor that he still has the officer’s now-ruined handkerchief wrapped around his thumb. He bangs into Alexis’ room and she screams where she sits cross-legged on the floor. 

“Ugh, David, I’m trying to meditate!” 

“There’s a cop downstairs, a special fucking agent, and he’s looking for Stavros and he wants to talk to you and I think I’m having a heart attack.” 

Alexis looks at him serenely. “Calm down, David. How much can he know?” 

What the hell kind of meditation was she doing? 

“An awful lot considering he’s come all the way from Toronto! And I know this sounds really strange - ” and even as he says it, he knows how ridiculous it is, “but I do not think I can lie to this man.” 

“Oh my God, of course you can lie to him,” she says as she stands, all business now. “You lie to people all the time.” 

“I do not!” 

“Who used Dad’s golf clubs to hit rocks into the windows of Bob’s Garage?” 

He gasps. “You said you’d take that to your grave. You pinky swore!” 

“Enough with the golf clubs, David! Let it go!" 

“You brought them up!” _ Oh my God. _

“Look - ” Alexis begins, grabbing his trembling hands. “Ew, David, you’re bleeding.” 

“I’m aware,” he grits out. 

“Right. We stick to the story. The story is: he hit me, and I left, and we haven’t seen him since.” 

“We haven’t seen him since,” David repeats. “Hit you. Left. Haven’t seen him since.” 

“It’s as simple as that. And you just let me handle the rest.” 

Okay, well, David doesn’t know what _ that _ means, but Alexis is a force to be reckoned with when she wants to be. He turns to go, reiterating their story like a mantra in his head. 

“Is he cute?”

“What?” 

“Is the cop cute?” she asks. 

David stops, feeling a flash of unearned jealousy. “Uh, ye - I mean, he’s nice. Sure.” 

She smiles. “That’s not what I asked, David.” 

“Get your ass downstairs, Alexis.” 

He stomps back down with far less grace than he should, remembering to grab a band-aid from his bathroom on the way. When he reaches the foyer, Agent Brewer is nowhere to be found. He’s not in the kitchen either, and David is seized with a momentary stab of panic, before he hears soft murmuring coming from the greenhouse. 

He gingerly steps across the hardwood and pokes his head around the corner. His heart, which had been dangerously close to cardiac arrest ever since Patrick Brewer walked into his yard, starts to settle:

Winnie is on the ground, paws in the air, head tilted back, tongue sticking out, as Agent Brewer rubs her tummy. 

The traitor. 

He wants to be mad, but it’s honestly the most life she’s shown all morning. He’ll take it. 

While his dog snuffles contentedly, the officer keeps one hand on her stomach as he uses the other to turn a bottle at eye-level so he can read the label. 

“Just herbs,” David blurts. “From the garden.” 

Agent Brewer looks up and raises an eyebrow. “The one with the roses?” 

“Yeah,” he says flatly, glaring inadvertently at the bunch Alexis left on the counter. “That one.” He can’t help but bend down and speak lowly to Winnie, gently resting his palm on her chest, feeling the steady thump of her heart. “Are you feeling better?” 

“Was she sick?” And bless him, he actually sounds concerned. 

David rubs behind her ears, leaning over and pressing his forehead to hers. “She was something,” he murmurs. 

“Well, hello,” Alexis says from the kitchen, and David sees Patrick’s face first: his eyes go wide and he clears his throat, gaze darting to David before finding his shoes as he stands. And then David turns and knows why. 

Alexis has changed into a fucking minidress. 

“Good morning, Ms. Rose,” he greets, stepping around Winnie and holding out his hand.

“Good morning, Mr…”

“Brewer.” 

“Mr. Brewer,” she smiles and holds his hand as if she’s expecting him to kiss it. He awkwardly shakes it up and down before letting go. 

David takes more delight in that than he probably should. 

“Listen, I’m not here to waste your time. I need to find your boyfriend, Stavros Demetriou.” 

“Oh,” she pouts, looking_ very _ sad that she can’t actually give him the information he’s looking for. “I don’t know where he is. Mm, and I wouldn’t exactly call him my boyfriend. He’s more like a big mistake.” 

Okay, Alexis, stop flirting with the officer of the law. 

“Is that his handiwork there?” he asks, nodding at the bruise on her face. 

“Mm hm. Can I take a peek at your hand?” 

“Sure?” Agent Brewer says, and Alexis is quick to pounce, grabbing it and running a finger over his palm. 

“Wow, now I can tell that you’ve never touched a woman in anger all your life.” 

David claps his hands over his flushed face, utterly mortified. 

Agent Brewer merely clears his throat again. “May I have my hand back please?” 

“Of course.” She lets go and looks about thisclose from actually booping him on the nose. 

“So what you’re saying is that you have no idea where he is,” he says, pulling out a small leather notebook from his inside jacket pocket and jotting something down. 

“I told you. He hit me and I haven’t seen him since.” 

“And when was that?” 

She tilts her head and squints, as if she needs to think hard about it. “Mm, three days ago. Right, David? Three?” 

David bites his lips and nods, eyes wide. He can’t describe how it feels to have that piercing gaze leveled at him once more. 

“Right, excuse me,” Patrick says to Alexis. “Mr. Rose, whose car is that in the driveway? The one with the New York plates.” 

“Oh that’s my car,” Alexis says, but David is already shaking his head. He’s hosted enough Law and Order marathons to know that Agent Brewer is only asking questions to which he already knows the answers. 

“Oh that’s your car? Plate number 639XOB?” 

Alexis nods, but David is frozen to the floor, sweating in his already ruined Stella McCartney sweater. Agent Brewer looks disappointed in them, and David hates nothing more than that look on his annoyingly adorable face. 

“That’s Stavros Demetriou’s car.” 

“We stole it,” he blurts, hands doing a fluttery thing that cannot be helped. Alexis is looking at him like she just added his name to a mafioso’s hit list. “And that’s a crime, _ I know_, but he basically kidnapped her - ”

“Wait - he kidnapped you?” Agent Brewer’s expression has gone from disappointed to alarmed, which isn’t much better. 

“Well, no,” David flounders, “he didn’t really _ kidnap _ her, it was more like a - like a little nap. A mini nap. There was a car and she… didn’t want to be in it, so - we had to - she didn’t - I picked her up and drove her back and yep, that’s - that’s what happened.”

On his tombstone, it should read: _ Never knew when to shut his mouth. _

“But by all means, please take the car. We would be _ so _happy to give it back to Mr. Demetriou. Wherever he may be.”

Agent Brewer is staring at him like he doesn’t know whether to arrest him or laugh at him. David knows which he’d prefer, but the look is so profoundly better than disappointment. He can’t _ describe _ how much better it is. 

“So basically, nobody knows where he is,” Agent Brewer concludes. 

“I’m sorry, what?” 

“You don’t know where he is,” he repeats. 

David shakes his head. “Uh uh.” 

“Right.” Agent Brewer leans in, almost conspiratorially. “Would you mind if I take a look around?” 

“No - nope.” David swallows and tries not to inhale the officer’s aftershave. 

“In the meantime, I’ll call a tow truck to get this… definitely not stolen vehicle out of your hair.” Agent Brewer moves towards the door, Winnie following close on his heels, and when he exits, she moves right along with him.

Huh.

“What is the matter with you?” Alexis bites out, pinching his elbow. 

“Ow!” he yelps, swatting her back. The answer to that question could take _ hours _to get through. 

They watch through the window as Agent Brewer walks around the car, thankfully avoiding the roses that both of them spent the morning ruining. Winnie trots along beside him, stopping briefly to go to the bathroom, and David can only stare, relieved that his puppy seems somewhat back to normal. 

“I guess I don’t need to call Ted.” 

“Who’s Ted?” Alexis asks. 

“The vet,” he replies. “Don’t get excited, he’s not your type. You’d eat him for breakfast.” He then thinks of Stevie’s joke about cannibals and stifles a laugh. He always did giggle at the most inappropriate times. 

Agent Brewer crouches by the driver’s side door of Stavros’ car and collects something from the seat. David tenses because that’s evidence. Evidence from a car seat that David himself was sitting in. Self-defense or not, all roads are leading back to him at the moment. 

His ears are starting to ring. He really should have eaten something this morning. 

Agent Brewer allows Winnie to lick his hand, before he stands and pats his thigh, getting her to jog after him first to his car and then back to the house. 

“Winnie certainly likes him,” Alexis points out and David hums. He’s not sure yet if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Surely, the love of a cute dog must work in their favor. And he’s not beyond a little bribery. 

The door opens once more and Agent Brewer stands there, having acquired a messenger bag from his car. “Mr. Rose, Ms. Rose, if I could have just one more moment of your time.” He motions towards the table by the window and pulls out a manila folder from the bag over his shoulder. 

David takes a seat and then promptly groans as Winnie jumps up into his lap. He swears she was a cat in another life. Soon, she’ll be too big to do that so he savors it while he can.

Agent Brewer smiles softly at them as Alexis takes the seat across from David. He places the folder on the table and flips open the top to reveal a series of photos, the first being a black and white yearbook page. The woman staring back at them is young and beautiful with a bright smile. 

The true crime addict in David knows immediately that he’s not going to like how this story ends. 

“This young lady’s name was Clara Walters. Three years ago, she was found strangled, lying on the side of the highway. Her body had been marked with a kind of brand, burned right into her face.” David’s eyes meet Alexis’ as Agent Brewer says, “It looked like a signet ring.” 

Alexis is gripping her fingers so tightly, her knuckles are white, and David closes his eyes, solely so he doesn’t have to look at the bright, hopeful-for-the-future smile of Clara Walters. Her fate could have very well have been his sister’s. 

Agent Brewer clears his throat and gathers the photos back up grimly. “Any help you can give me locating this ex-friend of yours would really be appreciated.” 

David licks his lips and nods, scratching behind Winnie’s ears as he stands with her in his arms. 

“You got it, Officer,” Alexis says, and this time, she _ does _boop him on the nose. 

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, but luckily, Agent Brewer seems to find it about as charming as David finds it disdainful. 

He shows himself out just as Bob Currie’s tow truck is pulling in the drive. David and Alexis watch through the window as Bob hitches up the Mustang and exchanges some words with Patrick. 

“We never have to see that motherfucking hunk of metal ever again,” he breathes. She rests her head on his shoulder and squeezes his arm. 

“I don’t think it’s the last we’ve seen of him, though.” 

Now that he thinks about it, focuses on it, David realizes that his gaze has never really left the agent. Ever since he arrived, he’s been drawn to him like a moon in orbit. Even when he went upstairs to talk to Alexis, he felt the pull, the tug in his gut to turn around and go back down the stairs. 

He’s stepping out of Alexis’ embrace before he realizes doing so, throwing open the front door and stumbling down the porch steps. 

“Um, Agent Brewer?” He walks down the path, pulling the bloodied handkerchief from his pocket as he goes. “I should probably give this back, but I’m not sure it’s salvageable.” 

Agent Brewer smiles. “Keep it. I have more.” 

_ Of course you do, _he thinks. “Okay,” he says instead. “Thanks again.” He turns and heads back up the path, but he’s called back once more. 

“Mr. Rose!” Agent Brewer pulls his wallet out of his back pocket and extracts a card. “If you remember anything, give me a call - ” 

“David,” he says, because if he has to hear ‘Mr. Rose’ out of that mouth one more time, he’s going to lose his goddamn mind. “David is my name. But you already know that.”

Agent Brewer holds out his hand, warm smile back in place despite the grim proceedings. “I do. Patrick.” 

“Patrick,” he repeats. He probably shouldn’t be calling this officer of the law by his first name. 

But it somehow feels wrong to call him anything else. 

xxxxxx

The thing about small towns is word gets around _ fast _ when there’s good gossip at hand. When said gossip involves a murder, a special agent, _ and _the Roses? Well, watch out world. Also, let it be promulgated by Bob Currie and they probably know in Vancouver by now. 

David ends up opening his store three hours late, Alexis doing a perfect impression of Winnie as she tags along behind him. Business is slow, which is to be expected on a Monday, but that doesn’t prevent people from stopping outside and staring through the window. He’d like to think it’s the tasteful Halloween decorations he put up in the windows attracting the attention, but he always has been very good at lying to himself. 

It’s enough to make one paranoid, so much so that when his phone vibrates across the counter, he jumps so badly, he startles Winnie in her bed under the cash. 

**[Stevie]**   
**A cop just checked in. Possibly relevant to your interests. **

He clutches the phone in his hand, for a brief moment worried that he’s holding it so tightly, it may crack. 

** _Why would you think a cop would be relevant to my interests?_ **

**[Stevie]**   
**I may not be a witch, but I’m not an idiot. **

He’s gotta give her that. Stevie Budd is most definitely not an idiot. 

**[Stevie]**   
**Also, he’s hot, which is always relevant to your interests. **

_ Fair enough. _He ignores the way his stomach twists at the thought of Agent Patrick Brewer. 

“Oh my God, David, this stuff is great,” Alexis chirps from the windowsill, where she’s liberally lathering body milk on her arms. 

He sighs. “Alexis, if you’re going to work here, maybe you could, I don’t know, work.” 

“I am!” she argues. “I’m testing the merchandise.” 

He’d almost rather kick her out, but then he’d have no one to watch the store while he runs his errands. Alexis is only a small step up from leaving it completely unattended, but he’ll take what he can get. Which actually - 

He grabs his phone and fires off a text to Stevie: 

** _May need you at the store. _ **

Unfortunately, Roland and Jocelyn choose that moment, when his defenses are already down, to try and browbeat him into submission for the umpteenth time. 

** _Need you now, actually._ **

“Hello, David!” Jocelyn greets, as the bell over the door rings out. 

“Jocelyn,” he grits. 

“Dave, how the hell are ya?” Roland says, sauntering in and already touching too many things with hands that David really hopes have been washed in the last week. 

Before he can answer, though, Jocelyn spots Alexis in the corner, and she all but bounces over to her. “Oh, Alexis! It’s so good to have you home!”

“It’s great to be,” she swallows hard, dislodging the word from her throat, “home.” 

Jocelyn doesn’t seem to notice and immediately swoops back over to David, brandishing a clipboard with something tacky attached to the front. “David, I’m sure you know why I’m here. I just wanted to try one more time to see if you’d host a booth at the Halloween Festival.” She nudges him with her arm, like they’re besties in the midst of some secret sharing. 

Alexis smiles broadly and props her chin on her hand where she leans on the counter. David hates her immensely. 

“Yeah, um, we don’t really _ do _ Halloween? So I think it’s gonna be a hard pass.” 

Jocelyn looks at the mini-pumpkins around the store. 

“Those are for aesthetic purposes only!” God, why does no one understand that? 

“It’s okay, Dave,” Roland says, nodding slowly. “Everyone knows it’s because you’re a wi-”

Jocelyn gets a hand on his arm and an elbow in his rib. “Different,” she saves. 

“Yeah, different,” Roland tries. He’d almost succeed too, if he hadn’t immediately started snickering. 

“Well, think about it,” Jocelyn offers, leaving a flyer on terrible orange card stock and hustling her husband out of the store before he can do more damage, verbal or physical. 

David stands there, mouth agape, staring after there. “Did that just happen?” 

“It did, David, yes,” Alexis says. 

David spots Stevie walking down the street and he grabs his stack of envelopes. “I’m going for a walk. I have to mail some vendor agreements. Don’t burn the place down.”

He slips out the door before she can argue, feeling slightly bad that he doesn’t say goodbye to Winnie first. He intercepts Stevie halfway down the block and promptly steps into her path. 

“How did you know he was a cop?” he says in lieu of a greeting, and she pulls up short. 

“Hello to you, too. First you demand my presence and now the third degree?” 

“Stevie. How did you know? What, did he, like, flash his badge or something?” 

She smirks. It’s dirty. “You wish.” 

He narrows his eyes. “I don’t know what that means.” 

“Oh sure you do,” she says coyly, but then she drops the facade. “No, he didn’t flash his badge. I can smell a government official a mile away.” 

“Uh huh, okay.” 

“He smells very nice by the way,” she needles. 

“Yes, thank you, I noticed.” 

Her gaze is drawn just down the street, near the post office where the letters in David’s hand need to go. “Speak of the devil,” she breathes. Sure enough, there’s Agent Brewer - Patrick - talking to someone who may or may not be the elusive Gwen. 

David remembers pale Stavros with his bloodshot eyes and a hand around his sister’s throat. “That’s not the devil,” he murmurs. 

Stevie seems to sense the shift in mood from teasing to tense and gently punches him on the arm. “I’ll go to the store.” 

He nods but doesn’t tear his eyes away from Patrick, little leather notebook in hand. He wonders what it says about him in there.

“Any luck with your parents?”

He shakes his head and focuses on Stevie once more. “Gone without a fucking trace. Dad’s even disabled Find my iPhone. I didn’t even know he knew how to _ do _ that!” 

Stevie smiles and nudges him in the direction of the post office. “Go mail your letters and stalk your man. I’ll feed your dog.” 

“I’m not stalking!” he yells after her, drawing the attention of a few passersby. 

“Sure you’re not, Dave!” Roland calls back from the steps of town hall, and David groans towards the sky. 

What happens that afternoon is a masterclass in espionage. Or at least so David likes to think. 

He hides behind various vegetable trucks, mailboxes, and strollers, eavesdropping on Patrick and the casual interviews he’s conducting:

“The son, David, cooks up special placenta at that store of his,” Ray says, all smiles. “It’s why the Roses don’t age.” 

“He’s selling placentas?” Patrick asks. 

“Placenta _ bars_. Have you seen his mother? She looks phenomenal.” 

He snorts. It’s true, she does; not that he’ll ever tell her that. They’d never hear the end of it. 

“And at Halloween, they all jump off the roof and fly,” Ray continues, pulling that out of his ass and a card out of his pocket. “Are you looking for real estate?” 

Patrick takes it good-naturedly, seemingly ignoring the first part of that last comment, thank God. “Not at the moment, no. But I’ll keep you posted.” 

David crouches down as much as his Rick Owens pants will let him and slides along as Patrick wraps up his chat with Ray and moves on to Jocelyn, putting up a flyer on the pole of a street light. He can’t hear the start of their conversation so he hurries behind an ice cream truck, which is decidedly _ incorrect,_ it being a) October and b) eastern fucking Canada. 

He does love ice cream, though, so he snags a cone and pretends he isn’t listening to Jocelyn and Patrick converse on the other side of the truck. Only two mothers hurry their children away from him. In a moment of petty comeuppance, he ensures they drip on their blouses. 

“If any man dared take on an Owens child," Jocelyn recites, "they lived briefly in the euphoria of their love until meeting an untimely death.” 

“Ah yes, the curse,” Patrick replies, and where the hell did he hear about _ that_? 

“Well, Moira’s husband Johnny is just fine, but her father…” Jocelyn bites her lip and tilts her head, the way you do when you’re about to give someone bad news. “He died rather suddenly in a car crash.” 

“That’s awful,” Patrick replies, again, sounding like he means it. Where did this empathetic creature come from? Even David is numb to the various deaths in his family by now. It had all happened before he was born. 

_ “I looked it up when Grandmom died.” _

Okay, maybe all of the deaths but one. 

“And the kids?” Patrick asks and David perks up again, distracted enough to let his ice cream melt down his hand. 

“David and Alexis? Well, if the curse if to be believed, then they’re of the generation that would…” she trails off, trying to be delicate. 

“I see,” Patrick replies. 

“But they’ve never dated anyone seriously, so who can know for sure?” Jocelyn says, going for levity, and something inside David cracks because that’s not true. 

David had Sebastien. 

But maybe everyone in town knew it wasn’t real but him. 

“Join us for the Halloween Festival. If you’re still around,” Jocelyn continues, handing Patrick an orange flyer. He doesn’t say yes or no, but he does fold it carefully and tuck it into his pocket. 

“Thanks for your time, Mrs. Schitt.” 

“They’re good kids, Agent Brewer,” she calls after him. “Misunderstood maybe, but good.” 

David hurries back to the store before he can hear anymore, heart feeling too many things to pick one particular emotion to focus on. His cheeks are wet and he manages to think _ why the hell is that happening? _as he bursts through the door, not startling any customers because there aren’t any there to startle. 

“What happened to your hand?” Stevie asks. She politely ignores what’s going on with his face. 

He looks down at the ice cream drying on his palm. “It’s chocolate.” 

“I assumed that, I meant the band-aid.” She holds out a mug of coffee from the Keurig in the back. It’s not an espresso machine, but one step at a time. 

He clears his throat and takes it gratefully, before heading for the bathroom to wash his hands. “I had a mishap with some garden shears. Where’s Alexis?” 

“She said she wasn’t feeling well,” Stevie says, following him to the bathroom and leaning against the door frame. “I sent her home.” 

“Typical,” he mutters, setting the mug on the side of the sink, peeling off the band-aid from this morning, and lathering the soap in his hands. He can feel Stevie’s eyes on him in the mirror, but he refuses to look up. To acknowledge that the last few days have been A Lot and he may not actually be Okay about it all. 

“Do you want me to stay over?” she asks as he dries his hands on a towel and grabs another band-aid from the first aid kit. 

He sighs deeply and shakes his head, finally looking at her as he heads back onto the floor. “I meant what I said this morning. I don’t want you mixed up in this.” 

She points through the window, to where Ronnie and Karen are trying to pretend like they’re looking at the leftover, discounted Thanksgiving gift baskets. “I think I’m already in it. And this is my reluctant attempt at being supportive. Also, for the first time in your life, I think your house actually scares the shit out of you.” 

Well, she’s not wrong. If he comes back to find the hacked roses have regrown over the course of the day, he’s going to lock himself in his room and never come out. Not even for food. 

But before he has the time to reconsider her offer, the bell over the door rings and there Patrick Brewer stands, looking shy yet dashing in an annoying, mid-range denim sort of way. 

“Welcome to Rose Apothecary,” David manages, offering a small smile. “Um, my sister isn’t here,” he says, because he’s an_ idiot_, and Patrick chuckles. 

“I’m not here for your sister.” 

That sentence both thrills and terrifies him. “Oh.” 

Stevie spins on her heel and tries to make herself look busy by the scarves, giving David a wide-eyed look that manages to both make him blush and wish he had a lawyer present. 

“Then how can we help you today, Officer?” 

“Just looking around,” he replies perfectly casually. No ulterior motive. 

David opens his mouth for yet another undoubtedly smartass retort about how special agents don’t just _ look around_, but then the bell over the door rings again, and David exhales when Twyla walks in. 

“Hi, David,” she greets, sunny smile on her face, completely oblivious to the tension (sexual or otherwise) that’s taken up residence in the confined space. 

“Hi, Twyla, what can I do for you?” 

“I’m looking for a bath bomb. My mom’s boyfriend used my last one on his cat.” 

Okay. Not what he was expecting. Then again, it never is with Twyla. 

“... Right. Excuse me,” he murmurs to Patrick, bringing Twyla over to the wall of products and pointing out the different options for different moods. 

Patrick moves away to inspect the shampoos and, a moment later, David hears him start humming a song that sounds suspiciously like _ Fantasy. _But there’s no way a strait-laced cop from Toronto is singing Mariah Carey. Right?

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Patrick approach Stevie, and David trails off in his description of which bath bombs are energizing, which are for romance, and which are for relaxation. God knows what Twyla (or her mom’s boyfriend’s cat) has planned for it anyway. 

Stevie’s voice carries across the store, and he clenches the bomb in his hand so tight, it disintegrates to powder in his palm. “Rich? Yeah. Evil? No. I mean you get your psychos now and then, you know, animal slaughter, ritual disembowelment, but that’s really pretty rare.” 

Oh he’s going to _ murder _ her for this. 

“He’s definitely not into that stuff.” 

“He’s not, huh?” Patrick glances down and freezes. David follows his gaze to see that the mug of coffee he left on the counter is stirring itself. 

_ Dammit. _

He moves over and claps his hand over the cup, halting the stirrer in its path. “Find what you need, Twyla?” he asks, voice entirely too high. 

“I think so,” she replies. 

He doesn’t _ dare _ look at Patrick as he checks her out. In fact, he’s surprised Special Agent Brewer hasn’t started to interrogate her, too, right here in the middle of the store. 

He bids her farewell, but continues to examine the whorls of the wood on the counter. His hand hasn’t left the top of his mug, which made wrapping up Twyla’s bath bomb more than a little difficult. 

Christ, he doesn’t use magic for years and then one of his little indulgences, a little slip he doesn’t even think about anymore, like muscle memory, goes and practically gets him arrested. 

Okay, Patrick is buying shampoo. The wrong kind for his hair type, but whatever, that’s not David’s problem. Maybe this means he'll get out on bond.

“Is that all?” David asks. His voice is a hoarse whisper. 

“I think so,” Patrick replies, equally quiet. It’s teasing, but there’s something else there. Something serious. Something questioning. His eyes dart to the mug again. Luckily the stirrer is still. 

Maybe he thinks he was seeing things. David doesn’t want him to think he’s crazy, but in all honesty, it’s better than the alternative. He’s seen The Crucible. He knows how this can end. 

Patrick makes a face when David rings him up, like he can’t quite believe he’s paying that much for shampoo, but he remains quiet, giving David and then Stevie a friendly smile as he exits, his complimentary Rose Apothecary tote tight in his hand. 

“What did he ask you?” David asks as soon as the door is closed behind him. 

Stevie shrugs. “The usual: how long your family’s lived here, how many lovers you’ve had, how many children you’ve killed, etcetera.” 

“That smug son of a - ” He grabs a bottle of shampoo off the shelf and is out the door before Stevie can even call him back. He knows she was kidding, but there’s some truth to it, isn’t there? The town is being questioned. About him. About Alexis. About their family. “Hey!” he snaps, probably way harsher than he should at a man of the law, as he hurries to catch up to him. “Am I under some kind of surveillance?”

Patrick turns, but continues to walk backwards, self-satisfied smile firmly in place. “Should you be?” 

“If there’s something you want to know, just ask me.” 

Patrick laughs, but it contains little humor. “I already did.” He stops walking so abruptly, David nearly runs into him. 

“What?” He crosses his arms over his chest. “Didn’t like my answer?” 

“Was it an answer?” Patrick challenges, before looking away and placing his hands on his hips, seriousness overtaking his previously smug expression. “Look, all I can tell you is that there appears to be something missing from your story.”

He sounds so sincere, so concerned, David aches to bend to his will. To tell him everything. 

“Listen, I want to talk to you some more, I do,” Patrick sighs, “but I have to finish up some homework here.” 

“More spying?” And wow, his mouth needs to stop, but Patrick merely smiles. 

“How about I come by your house tomorrow morning?”

David considers this. He knows his house. He feels comfortable in his house (or he used to). His house is also the scene of a crime. Hmm, decisions, decisions. 

“Fine,” he says. “But not before 10am. I’m not really a morning person.” 

“Never would have guessed.” 

David narrows his eyes, but doesn’t retort, finally remembering the bottle he holds in his hand. “You bought the wrong shampoo, by the way. You should use this one with your texture.” 

Patrick lifts the bottle he purchased from the reusable tote. “But this one says it’s for curls.” 

David raises an eyebrow. “Yes? And?” 

Patrick smiles. “I just cut my hair. But give it a month and I’ll be needing this shampoo.” 

“Oh.” David would wait a month for that. In fact, he’d wait years for those curls. 

_ Oh. _

_ “He’ll have curly hair and honey-colored eyes with a ring of green around them.” _

Well, he thinks. That’s a coincidence. 

xxxxxx

David should have taken Stevie up on her offer to stay over. Wind seems to be howling through every crack in the house, and despite mocking his father’s instructions, checking the windows was probably sage advice, especially given the way the branches are banging against them. Cocooned in his bed with the blankets pulled up to his nose, he really hopes they survive the onslaught. 

He’d like to blame the weather for the reason he’s still awake at - he checks his phone - 3:27 in the morning, but between the dead body in the yard and the special agent who’s seemed to fold his way into his very soul, the weather is the last thing on his mind. 

A floorboard creaks down the hall from his bedroom, and he’d normally attribute it to the growing pains of an old house, but there was weight behind it. A determination. He sits up and listens harder, but he can’t hear anything above the wind and the steady breathing of the dog pressed into his side. He gingerly gets out of bed, hesitating by the footboard. As much as he’d love the company for what will undoubtedly be a very stupid excursion, Winnie continues sleeping soundly and he’s loath to wake her. She’s been acting so oddly, he wants her to get as much rest as possible. 

He tiptoes over to the door, pulling the sleeves of his sweatshirt over his hands to ward off the chill. Gently opening it, he pads down the hall, pausing at the square spiral stairs and listening for Alexis moving around in the loft. Hearing nothing, he heads down, walking through the kitchen and shivering in the breeze coming in through the back door… that’s been left wide open. 

Wonderful. 

He goes over to close it, cursing as the cold seeps through his pajamas, but then he stops, mouth falling open at the sight on the porch: 

Alexis, standing there in a sleeveless blue nightgown that’s billowing in the wind, staring unmovingly at the roses, the place he last felt like himself. 

Truth be told, though, he hasn’t felt like himself since Alexis’ call. 

“What the hell are you doing?” he hisses, despite the fact that no one is around to wake. It feels too delicate a situation to barge in on. 

She turns slowly and the look on her face stops the incredulity on his. Something’s… not right. She looks hardened in a way she never has before, not even as she stood over the body of her ex-lover after he tried to kill her. The hair on the back of his neck stands on end. 

“Alexis?” 

She walks towards him and stops close enough for her bare arm, which isn’t even dotted with goosebumps, to just brush his sweatshirt.

“He might be a button, David, but he needs to go.” 

He doesn’t need to ask whom she’s talking about, and the visceral fear that seizes him in that moment chokes his throat and stutters his heart. 

She disappears into the house, and he watches her go, a continual chorus of _ What the fuck? _echoing on a loop in his head. 

xxxxxx

** _Can you come over? Alexis is being weird._ **

**[Stevie]**   
**More so than usual? **

** _Agent Brewer is coming for breakfast. _ **

**[Stevie]**   
**oooh. should i hitch a ride with him? **

** _I need you here now please. _ **

**[Stevie]**   
**yeah, yeah, i’m coming.**

David yawns loudly and obnoxiously as he stirs batter in a bowl on the kitchen counter. It’s 9:53 and he’ll need at minimum two more cups of coffee before he’s a semi-functioning adult. He’s at least showered and dressed, and his twelve-step skincare routine plus face mask was just what his dehydrated and stressed complexion needed. 

He watches Alexis set the table outside, just beyond the porch he found her standing on like a widow waiting for her dead husband to return from war. She seems… back to her old self. A little pale, a little drained, but just as self-absorbed as ever. Whatever last night was seems to have passed, and David is more than fucking grateful. The last thing he needs this morning, along with a cop across his breakfast table, is a sister trying to kill him. 

Alexis isn’t a killer, though. Neither of them is, despite all evidence to the contrary. 

“Seriously,” Stevie starts, making David jump as she saunters into the kitchen, “what’s wrong with your dog?” 

David tenses. “What do you mean?” 

“She won’t go outside again. She was sitting by the door whimpering when I got here, but when I opened it - nothing.” 

_ Fuck. _

“I don’t know.” He clears his throat and wipes his hands on the dish towel. “She seemed to be fine yesterday after you left.” 

“When Agent Brewer came by?” 

He clears his throat again. Is it hot in here? “Somewhere around then, yes.” 

She hums and watches him knowingly. Only then does he notice the black leather book in her hand.  
  
“Um, where did you get that?” His voice is high. Panicked.

“Oh, this little thing?” 

“Stevie.” 

“Alexis found it in the pantry.” 

“Alexis is in the pantry?” He looks outside and, sure enough, the table is set and his sister is nowhere to be found. 

“Making something.” Stevie shrugs. “I’m _ much _more interested in what’s in these pages. Particularly this little spell. True Love? Aw, David.” 

“Drop dead, please.” 

“Such a polite witch.” 

God, she’s the worst.

“He will hear my call a mile away,” she reads. “Does it have to be an exact mile? Is there wiggle room?” He ignores her and she looks back down at the book. “He will whistle my favorite song.’ - Wasn’t that Mariah I heard Agent Brewer humming yesterday?”

“Humming isn’t whistling,” he retorts lamely. She gives him a look that indicates just how lame she thinks it was.

“He can ride a pony backwards.’ Got a thing for cowboys?” 

“Okay, I was ten and going through an Indiana Jones phase.” 

“Aren’t we always?” she sighs. “He can flip pancakes in the air.” She looks pointedly at the griddle. “Shall we test that theory?” 

He shakes his head and goes to pour more coffee. 

“He’ll have curly hair and honey-colored eyes with a ring of green around them.’ Well, I haven’t looked at his eyes close enough, but he doesn’t have curly hair,” she says and David bites his lips, keeping the truth trapped behind them. God knows what she’d do with that information. “Well, can’t win them all,” she continues. “He’ll be ridiculously kind and unwaveringly brave. And his favorite shape will be a star.’ How oddly specific.”

He turns to her, full mug of coffee in hand, spoon stirring the sweetener of its own volition. “Are you done?” 

She snaps the book shut and holds it out for him. “I like this for you.” 

“Like what? There’s nothing to like.” He takes it and tosses it in a drawer, slamming it shut and hoping he remembers where it is when he’s no doubt looking for it later. 

“He’s nice.”

“Yeah, well, that nice man is investigating me for - ”

“For what?” she interrupts, eyebrows raised. “You refuse to actually tell me what is going on.” 

“Doesn’t matter.” He should find Alexis. Patrick will be here soon.

“It does matter, David,” she says, getting a hand on the doorway and barring his exit. “I don’t know if you need to hear this, but I’m not going anywhere. Nothing you can say will scare me off.”

He swallows hard. “It’s just, historically speaking, the more I reveal of myself, the less interested people get. Or they get _ overly _ interested and then I’m just a town punchline.”

Stevie lowers her arm, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t feel the need to flee as much. “David, I know everything about you. I know about your history, your family; I know about the crime you may or may not have committed. And I’m still here.” 

He nods and tries to dislodge the golf ball that’s somehow gotten stuck in his throat. “I think you’re my best friend,” he whispers. 

“You think?” 

“Well, I can’t know for sure because I’m realizing now that I don’t think I’ve ever really had one.” 

She shrugs. “Well, if we’re being honest, I don’t think I’ve ever had one either.” 

“Mkay. Well, this would be a really sweet moment if what we had just admitted to each other wasn’t so sad. Go put the orange juice on the table before I break out into hives.” 

She snorts, but does as he asks, and he watches her go with what he’s sure is a dopey expression on his face. He’s felt forced familial love and (apparently) unrequited love, but this might be the first time he’s had platonic love. It’s not the bright hot, all consuming pang of romantic love, but it’s steady. Warm and open and encompassing, like a hug you just sink into. 

He desperately wants to tell her. He wants to tell her everything. It would be so wonderful to have a sounding board that isn’t Alexis, but he can’t do that to Stevie. He loves her too much to put her in that position.

Speaking of Alexis - 

David passes by the open door to the pantry, but his sister is gone. Frowning, he sticks his head in and spots the spell book open on the counter. That is definitely not where they left it on The Night That Shall Not Be Named. He takes a step further in, but a knock sounds at the door, pulling him from the book and ensuring he never does see that it’s open to the page labeled: ** _To banish unwanted persons._ **

He walks through the foyer and opens the big wooden door, revealing Patrick looking entirely too good for so early in the day. Sadly, his forearms are hidden beneath the brown coat he wears.

“Good morning,” David murmurs, glancing at the large grandfather clock behind him. “10:02am. How prompt.” 

“I do what I can,” he smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Not the way it usually does. 

David tenses. “Come in? Breakfast is almost ready.” 

“Oh, you didn’t have to cook.” 

“No offense, but it’s not for you,” he says as he leads him to the kitchen. “I get cranky if I’m not fed every four hours.” 

Patrick grins genuinely this time. “Noted.” 

Winnie chooses that moment to trot over and immediately nuzzle into Patrick’s leg. He crouches down and rubs her ears. “Hey there, you feeling better?” 

“She was,” David murmurs. “But then she wouldn’t go outside again today.” 

“Huh.” He frowns and holds her face in his hands, as if inspecting her. 

“Know much about animals?” 

Patrick hums. “I grew up on a farm. Speaking of - that black cat that was outside your store yesterday. His name wouldn’t be Jeremiah, would it?” 

Oh fucking great. “Someone’s been reading up on local lore.” 

Patrick smirks. “Hard not to when you have an entire festival dedicated to it. And a town more than willing to offer it up.” 

“Don’t remind me,” he mutters, as he turns on the stove and stirs the batter once more, getting a measuring cup out of the drawer to ladle it onto the griddle. “So you wanted to talk to me?” The fact that his voice comes out steady is a goddamn miracle. He’s not sure what it is about Patrick Brewer, but it’s like he lights his veins on fire whenever he’s around. 

He wonders if it’s mutual. 

“Your parents live here, too?” 

David rolls his eyes. “Yes. A thirtysomething man living at home. Shocking, I know.”

“I was just going to ask where they were.” 

“No fucking idea,” he blurts, before realizing he probably shouldn’t. 

“You don’t know where your parents are?” 

David clears his throat and watches the batter bubble in the pan. “Some conference. I’m a little hazy on the details, I honestly don’t pay attention much when my parents talk.” 

Patrick laughs at that. “Fair enough.” He sounds farther away and David turns to find him hovering by the greenhouse again, inspecting a bottle on the counter. The same bottle he was looking at the last time he was here. Was that just yesterday? 

“Belladonna,” he explains, flipping the pancakes. He’s trying to go for unconcerned, but his hands are starting to shake. “It’s a sedative. People put it in their tea to relax. Calm their nerves.” He could use some. 

Patrick nods, but when he looks at David, his eyes are hard. “Some people also use it as a poison.” 

“Which people?” 

Patrick crosses his arms. “Exactly. Witch people.” 

“Ah.” He scoops the pancakes onto a plate and turns the fire off. “I guess you found me out, huh?” 

“Did I?” There’s still that layer of teasing beneath the frustration of having a case he can’t solve. 

David steps closer, nodding his head. “You should come around here on Halloween. You’d really get a show then.”

“Oh yeah?” 

“We all jump on the roof and fly. We kill our spouses too.” He stops in front of him. “Or is that outside your jurisdiction?” 

Patrick drops his chin to his chest and shakes his head. “David, do you have any idea how strange all of this sounds to me?” 

At least he said ‘strange’ and not ‘crazy.’ David has been accused of being that far too often for his liking. 

“I have people telling me you’re up here cooking up placenta bars. That you’re into devil worship.” Winnie noses at Agent Brewer’s hand. He absentmindedly pets her. 

“Ah, that’s incorrect. No devil in the craft. Also, be careful. She’s a werewolf.” 

“What?” 

“I’m kidding.” 

Agent Brewer sighs and glances around the room once more, eyes lingering on the belladonna on the counter. “So what kind of craft do you do?” 

“I manufacture bath oils and hand lotions and that shampoo you complained about paying too much for.” 

He chuckles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “And your mother?” 

“Oh she likes to meddle in people’s love lives. Her own personal soap opera.” 

Silence descends and they both stare at each other. 

“See the thing is, Agent Brewer - "

“Patrick.” 

David pauses and swallows. That name on his own tongue could nearly be enough to unravel him. “Magic isn’t just spells and potions. Your badge,” he nods towards Patrick’s chest, and Patrick holds out his coat so David can take it from his inner pocket. His fingers brush his blue button-down, body warm and oh so soft. “It’s just a star. Just another symbol. A totem. But it can’t stop criminals in their tracks, can it?” He licks his lips and meets his eyes once more. “It has power because you believe it does.” 

“David,” he breathes, closing his eyes and swaying forward slightly. 

What David wouldn’t give to find out just how soft those lips are. 

But Patrick is here investigating a disappearance. The disappearance of a man that David and Alexis made go away. They are not on the same side. 

“You know, I wish you could believe in me,” he says as he hands the badge back and turns for the kitchen once more. 

“David,” Patrick pauses and David waits, because he’s realizing he might actually wait forever if Patrick asked him to, “are you hiding Stavros Demetriou?” 

He meets his gaze dead on. “Not in this house.” 

“Did you or your sister kill Stavros Demetriou?” Patrick asks, voice hitching in preparation for an answer he really doesn’t want to know. 

David decides not to go easy on him:

“Oh yeah,” he says lightly. “Couple of times.” 

xxxxxx

David had never been more grateful for Stevie than he was when she burst through the back door and yelled, “Are we eating or what? I’m starving!” 

It had diffused the tension that had settled in the room like a fog, allowing them a moment to breathe.

“Ms. Budd,” Patrick had greeted and she waved, nodding at the badge he slid back into his pocket. “That’s a nice star you have there, Agent Brewer.” 

She shot David a knowing look and he tried to say _ Piss off _with his eyes. 

Now here they are, seated around the wooden table because Alexis, for reasons utterly beyond him, insisted on eating outside despite the fact that it’s fucking October. He expected Winnie to put up a fuss again about going into the yard, but the minute Patrick opened the door, there she was, hot on his heels. 

It made absolutely no sense. 

But it might, if he thought harder about it. Looked deeper. But ignorance is bliss, or whatever. 

“Can you ride a pony backwards?” Stevie asks as David distributes pancakes. 

Patrick chuckles. “Been a long time since I rode a pony, but yes, backwards, forwards, sideways, you name it.” 

The door opens and out swans Alexis, finally, carafe of something in hand. “Well this is cosy. Hi, Patrick. I can call you ‘Patrick,’ can’t I?” 

His gaze flicks to David, who’s been calling him Patrick since he arrived. “Why not?”

“Oh you _ must _ try some of my syrup,” she says, sitting down and holding the pitcher over the table for Patrick. 

“What happened to the bottle?” David asks. “I put it on the counter.” 

“I made this special,” she says, batting her eyelashes and causing David to vomit a little in his mouth. 

“O-okay,” Patrick says, polite as ever. He takes the carafe and is about to pour it on his pancakes, but Winnie starts to growl next to him, drawing all eyes to her. “Whoa, hey. You okay?” 

“Winnie, no growling,” David says with a frown. She’s the most well-behaved dog in the world. He’s been trying to teach her to yip at Roland for christ’s sake, but she won’t even do that.

The growl grows into a bark, and Patrick turns in his seat, leaning over to offer her his hand, but she darts forward, knocking the pitcher from his grip and spilling it all over the lawn. 

“Winnie, no!” Alexis yells, standing so abruptly, she knocks her chair over, but Winnie merely bites the handle with her teeth and runs away with it. Alexis chases after her. 

“Well, I guess she didn’t want you to eat that,” Stevie laughs, but she’s the only one. 

“I guess not,” Patrick murmurs, eyeing the syrup that’s staining the grass. 

“My sister isn’t exactly known for her cooking skills,” David manages, watching as Winnie digs a hole with her paws and drops the pitcher in it before covering it back up. He stands and starts to wander over to her, and to Alexis who’s muttering curses while watching his dog pounce happily on her handiwork, as if extremely proud of herself. 

He’s honestly not quite sure what to do. Should he punish her and then give her a bath? Should he laugh it off and get the regular bottle of syrup off the counter and salvage breakfast? Should he ask Alexis what the fuck is going on? 

Before he can settle on a course of action, a loud _ ribbit _ comes from his left, low enough to almost sound like a growl. He inches closer to the fallen tree that the large toad is squatting on, scrunching up his face because _ ew_. 

“David?” Alexis asks, coming up to his side. He looks over his shoulder to find that Patrick and Stevie have joined them. 

The noise from the toad changes - it almost sounds like it’s gagging - and Winnie is back to whimpering and hiding behind Patrick’s legs. 

“What the - ” 

But the toad chooses that moment to cough something up. Something silver. Something engraved. Something David isn’t likely to forget for all the rest of his days. 

Stevie tilts her head to the side. “It’s - ”

A signet ring. _ Which looks like something they pass out on day one of mafia training. _His own thoughts come back to haunt him as panic bubbles in his chest. 

“Oh,” Alexis starts, overly relieved. “Wow, I’ve been looking for this!” She reaches for it, but Patrick is quicker, getting a handkerchief (those damn handkerchiefs) out of his pocket and picking it up carefully. “This is his party trick, right, David? We’re going to teach Winnie next - ” 

Patrick is examining the ring closely and David knows they’re fucked before he even opens his mouth. It’s in the way he clenches his jaw and breathes out harshly through his nose. “It’s your ring, is it?” he asks. 

“It is,” Alexis says, giggling. “Can I have it back please?” 

“What do you think you’re playing at?” he asks, voice incredulous.

“What do you mean?” Alexis asks, the epitome of innocence. 

David remains silent, though, breath hitching as he watches Patrick put his walls back up. But it’s worse than when he arrived. The warmth in his eyes is totally gone. 

“You better get yourselves a damn good lawyer,” he says, but he’s staring at David. “And don’t even think about leaving town.” He starts the trek back around the house, Winnie following him once again. “And what the hell was in that syrup?” he throws over his shoulder. 

David swallows hard, turning slowly to look at his sister. “What did you do?”

Alexis drops the act, looking more like the stranger he found on the porch in the middle of the night than the sister he grew up with. “What you can’t.” 

She storms off back to the table, and David manages a “stay here” for an absolutely thunderstruck Stevie before shouting her name and running after her. 

Alexis is stacking the plates so violently, he’s convinced they’re going to crack. 

“Alexis,” he snaps. 

“It’s going to be fine, David, God. We just - stick to our stories. If you can manage it without drooling all over the man.”

“Oh, that’s low.”

But she doesn’t hear him. Or she chooses not to listen. “No body. No crime. It’s as simple as that,” she finishes with a flourish, dropping a napkin on the piles of plates she’s left and heading for the house.

“Get back here, Alexis! I am so fucking sick and tired of cleaning up your messes.” 

“Oh that’s right, David. I’m just one big mess,” she spits as she turns. “But at least I’ve lived my life, and you hate me for that because it scares the hell out of you.” 

He scoffs. Or, he tries to. “No, Alexis, I’m not scared.”

“Yes you are! Why don’t you use magic anymore, David, huh?” 

“I did use magic, _ Alexis, _and look where it got us.” 

She crosses her arms and narrows her eyes, disdain dripping from her every word. “All my life, I wish I had _ half _ your talent. You’re wasting yourself!” 

“Fuck you, Alexis.” 

The door that slams in the wake of her departure sounds overly loud in the empty silence she leaves behind. It’s the most brutal he can ever recall them being with each other, even despite a lifetime of griping and needling and mocking and teasing. 

He feels a hand on his arm and he flinches; Stevie holds up her hands before letting them drop back by her side. 

“Are you okay?” 

He doesn’t answer her though. He just stares at the chair Patrick sat in just a few minutes ago, back when it still felt like they might be able to pull this off. 

He’s heading down the path to the front of the house before he can register doing so. 

“Where are you going?” Stevie asks, but his feet don’t stop. 

“I’m doing the right thing.” 

“David - ” 

“If you need me, I’ll be at the motel,” he says, eyes tearing. “I assume you know which room.” 

xxxxxx

David Rose has many gifts but running is not one of them. 

As fate would have it, though, he’ll run for Patrick Brewer. 

Patrick is already almost at the motel by the time David catches sight of him walking at a brisk clip. He hurries on, bypassing the stores on Main Street, including his own, in an effort to get within shouting distance. 

“It was Stravros’ ring,” he calls as he catches up, panting, and Patrick looks over his shoulder and clenches his jaw. David wishes he didn’t find the jump of that muscle quite so sexy. 

“Oh trust me. I’m aware. You see it burned into the skin of enough dead young girls, it stays with you.” He keeps on walking so David falls into step with him. 

“Look, I know you knew that, but I needed to tell you.” 

“I was serious back there, David. You better get a lawyer before you talk to me.” 

He grabs hold of his arm and pulls him to a stop. “I don’t want a lawyer.” It comes out more desperate than he means it to. He hadn’t quite wanted to show his hand so early, but Patrick does something to the filter between his brain and his mouth. Things just… happen. 

“All right, David,” he murmurs, softly. Like he did before shit hit the fan. He gestures to the motel just ahead and presses a hand on the small of David’s back. “Come in.” 

The room is tidy, as to be expected given Patrick’s general nature, but crime scene photos litter the bedspread. 

“Sorry,” he murmurs, quickly gathering them up. “You don’t need to see that.” 

David is grateful. He’s experienced enough gruesomeness over the past few days to last him a lifetime. 

Patrick grabs an old-school tape recorder off the desk in the corner and gestures for David to take a seat in the chair. “This is the testimony of David Rose, October 22nd, 2018,” he says into it. 

David slowly sinks into the seat and Patrick takes his place opposite him. He’s staring at the recorder so hard, his vision is beginning to blur, but then Patrick places his hand on David’s clenched fist, and David slowly exhales. He offers Patrick a grateful smile, which the officer manages to return. It takes all of his will power not to whimper when he eventually lets go. 

“Where is Stavros Demetriou?” Patrick asks and David shifts in his chair.

“I think he’s in the spirit world.” 

“You think he’s dead.” 

“No I think he’s haunting us.” 

Patrick pinches the bridge of his nose and leans forward, elbows on the table. “Did you or your sister kill Stavros Demetriou?” 

“Alexis didn’t kill anybody.” 

Patrick swallows. David watches his Adam’s apple bob. “Alexis didn’t, but you did.” 

David stares at him. 

“Did you?” Something in Patrick breaks. “C’mon, David, did you.” 

God, he was wrong. He can’t do this. He stands with a huff and shakes his hands, wiping his sweaty palms on his black jeans. “What if I told you I did? What would you do? Would you send me to jail for the rest of my life, all because the world was short a man like Stravros Demetriou?”

“David, it’s not for you or me to decide how he should be punished,” Patrick murmurs.

David hates how soft and placating his voice is. Damn him and his moral fortitude. 

“He has to be held accountable,” Patrick says as he stands. David lifts his chin. 

“Well, he has been.” 

Patrick stares at him, heartbreak in his eyes, before turning and taking the tape from the recorder, and crunching it under his boot. “You really need to get a lawyer’s advice before we go any further.” 

David nods and crosses his arms across his chest, attempting to fold in on himself. Protect his belly or whatever it was that that nature documentary taught him.

“I know you’re in some kind of trouble,” Patrick continues. “Just - let me in. Tell me what you know, and, David, I promise you: I will do everything I can to keep you safe.” 

David has known this man for 24 hours. And yet he knows that those words are some of the truest he’s ever heard spoken. 

“Can you trust me?” Patrick whispers, eyes flicking down for the briefest of moments to his lips. 

“Yes,” David breathes, cupping Patrick’s face and bringing him in, all but crashing their lips together as fireworks explode behind his eyes. 

_ Oh. _That’s what that’s supposed to feel like. 

Patrick returns in kind, moaning into his mouth and getting his arms around David’s back, clutching at his sweater. David’s thumb caresses the line of Patrick’s jaw and his fingers slide up into the short hair behind his ear. He doesn’t realize they’re moving until he feels the wall against his back and Patrick warm and solid at his front. 

But as soon as he’s there, he’s gone: 

“I can’t - ” Patrick gasps, backing away but keeping his grip on David’s shoulders firm. 

“I’m sorry,” David blurts, “I shouldn’t - ”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he says, pressing his forehead against David’s chin. 

David cups his face and presses a kiss to his hair, nosing along the curls he can see just starting to form. Patrick lifts his head and their lips find their way to each other again like magnets. He pulls David away from the wall and hoists him onto the bed, getting a knee between his legs and bracing himself on his hands so he doesn’t crush into the mattress. David grabs hold of Patrick’s face again, pulling him flush against him and getting a leg up and over his hip, letting out a groan that seems to come from the very depths of his soul. 

This is wrong, he _ knows _it is. Patrick is an officer of the law and David buried a dead body in his yard the other day - 

But it’s also the most _ right _ he’s ever felt in his life.

Patrick pulls away panting, lips red and swollen, cheeks flushed. He’s possibly the most beautiful thing David’s ever seen. He shouldn’t feel like this after one day. That’s not normal. 

Then Patrick blinks his eyes open and David, suddenly, knows why:

Eyes the color of honey. With a ring of green around them. 

_ No. Not this. Not him. _

“I have to go,” he blurts, pushing Patrick up and scrambling off the bed, feeling a fissure start to split his heart with every step he takes. 

“David - !” 

He doesn’t dare look at Patrick’s face. He knows his expression will probably look about as broken as David feels.

xxxxxx

It had been a stupid spell when he was a stupid child and now it brought this stupidly good and beautiful man into his life, and David doesn’t know what’s real anymore. 

He groans as he stalks down Main Street, wiping tears from his cheeks and not caring that Twyla is giving him a concerned look as he passes by the cafe. 

He doesn’t want to go home because Alexis is there, and he just can’t deal with her yet. Not when he’s feeling this raw. This vulnerable. 

This goddamn sad. 

He opens the door to the store, but leaves the sign reading CLOSED. It’s Tuesday; he was supposed to be open two hours ago, but he just can’t be bothered. People can live without their aromatherapy candles for another day. 

The door has just closed behind him when he hears it.

It’s a sound he’s never heard before so he’s honestly not sure what he expected; Something different, maybe. Something louder. But the heavy feeling of inescapable dread that settles thick and nauseating in the pit of his gut tells him he’s not wrong. 

The deathwatch beetle. 

“No,” he breathes. “No, no, no.” He stalks around the store, trying to pinpoint where it’s coming from. “That’s not possible. I don’t - I don’t love him.” 

But more importantly: 

_ He doesn’t love _ ** _me_**_. _

It’s been one fucking day. 

The noise is coming from beneath the hardwood floor, and he frantically looks around, trying to find something to pry up the boards. Grabbing a crowbar from the closet, he presses his ear to the ground, banging on the wood to get the beetle to make another noise. 

“Don’t do this to me,” he mutters. “I just found him. Don’t take him now.” 

_ “I dream of a love that even time would lay down and be still for,” _ he once wrote in his journal. He’d like time to lay down and be still now. 

Jamming the end of the crowbar into the seam, he levers the first board up before getting to work on the second. Normally, a beetle would make him run screaming in the other direction, but this one - this one he needs to find. He needs to stop. 

It takes him longer than it should to realize he’s crying, tears dropping from his face onto the ruined floor below. 

“Come on, you son of a bitch.” The pile of boards stacks up, and David groans in frustration as the beetle continually slips his grasp. “Come on!” he screams. 

The bell over the door rings and he looks up to find Stevie standing in the entrance looking horrified. He can only imagine what he looks like - tears and sweat and snot all over his face as he wields a crowbar to destroy one of the few things in his life he cares about. 

“What the hell, David?” 

“It’s Patrick,” he pants, hiccuping around a sob. “I think he’s in trouble.” 

“Then why are you ripping up your store?” 

“It’s the beetle, I have to find it,” he rambles. “Why are _ you _ here?” 

“You weren’t answering your phone!” she cries. 

“I left it at the house.” 

“I was on my way to the motel and I saw you through the window. David,” she says, and he finally gets a good look at her. 

She looks terrified. 

“I think something’s wrong with Alexis.” 

xxxxxx

David can feel it in his bones as soon as he gets to the gate of the house. It’s a darkness that leeches the warmth from his body and sets his heart skittering out of rhythm. 

So he does the only thing he can think of: he whispers the only word that will bring him any sort of comfort at the moment. The name of the one person he wants by his side as he faces whatever is on the other side of that door. 

“Patrick.” 

xxxxxx

Across town, in a rundown motel room, Patrick’s head snaps up.


	5. something wicked this way comes

When Patrick Brewer is eight-years-old, a flurry of petals swirls around him in a field on his farm where he’s trying to help his father deliver a foal. 

The petals land scattered about on the hay, but not before one softly brushes his cheek, like his mother does with the back of her finger to wipe his tears. 

He doesn’t know how or why, but he thinks his life just changed. 

xxxxxx

The house is quiet when David pushes the door open. He’s not sure what he expected, maybe something out of The Shining, but the silence almost scares him more. His house is so rarely still - either his father is yelling at the squirrels on the bird feeder or his mother is cursing out a missed step in the spell book or a wig not properly cared for. Alexis is a recent re-addition, but ‘docile’ is a word no one would ever use to describe her. 

His footsteps are loud in the hushed foyer, and he strains by the stairs to hear anything. Stevie said Alexis was in her room, but didn’t give any explanation beyond that. Her face was explanation enough.

A snuffle followed by a whimper comes from the kitchen, and David abandons the step to go find Winnie because he'd know that whine anywhere. He can’t believe he left his baby girl in this hell house. The kitchen is empty, but he finds her curled up under the table in the greenhouse, as far away from Alexis’ room as possible without actually going outside.

“So that’s why,” he murmurs, scooping her up and cuddling her to his chest for a moment. “At least now I know why you like Patrick so much.” At the mention of the officer who may or may not have a death warrant with his name on it, David’s heart constricts. 

Okay, one catastrophe at a time. 

“I have to go find Alexis. Stay here,” he says, setting Winnie down, but if the way she immediately cowers in the corner is any indication, she won’t be going anywhere any time soon. 

He places his hand on the railing of the spiral staircase and tries to take that first step, but his boots feel like they have cinder-blocks strapped to them. The trek to the third floor is long, and he’s not sure what he’ll find at the top. 

He manages to just get to the second floor when he hears it: 

“David!” It’s so gut-wrenching, so desperate, so pained, he all but sprints the remaining flight of stairs. 

“Alexis!” 

Everyone has an idea of what possession looks like - he’s seen enough scary movies to know what it entails. But no movie, not even one made by a master horror filmmaker, can prepare him for the sight of his sister on her bed, back arched, hands reaching out for anything that will take the pain away. 

“I’m here,” he says, but his feet don’t carry him any further. 

“David, make it stop.” She grunts and curls in on herself, before whatever (or whoever) is battling it out inside her causes her body to bow again.

_Jesus Christ._

He doesn’t know how. 

He walks further across the hardwood floor of the loft. He had initially been mad that Alexis laid claim to the large space on the third floor, roughly twice the size of his own room. But he’d take it back, he’d take back every mean, hurtful, terrible thing he’s ever thought or said about her as long as she no longer looked like that: 

Pale, sweaty, and crying, scratching at her skin as if it's too small for whatever it’s trying to contain. 

“Alexis - ”

But before he can go further, he feels an arm come around him from behind and a hand press into his chest. He gasps as a gun is leveled next to his right shoulder, but then Patrick’s voice is murmuring against the shell of his ear:

“Don’t move.” 

He closes his eyes and lets the sturdy body behind him take his weight even as Kill Bill sirens go off in his head. “What are you doing here?” 

Patrick leans his head against David’s. “You called for me.” 

_ He will hear my call a mile away. _

Oh God. “You can’t be here.” He turns in his arms and grabs hold of his lapels, pushing against his chest and attempting to walk him back towards the stairs. 

“What? What do you mean?” He lowers the gun, but his eyes don’t leave Alexis. “David, what’s - ”

“You’re in trouble.” 

Patrick continues to look wide-eyed at Alexis writhing on the bed. “Yeah, I think we’re all in trouble, David!” 

He hears the chirp of the deathwatch beetle even now, haunting his every breath. 

“Please go.” David cups his face, thumbs brushing his cheekbones, and Patrick finally looks at him.

“I’m not leaving you.” 

Alexis gives another cry and they both turn to her. If David didn’t have a lifetime of studying supernatural elements under his belt, he would think that what he was seeing was impossible. 

But there he is: Stavros Demetriou, sitting up from his sister’s body and cracking his neck like he’s just woken from a rather long nap. 

Patrick’s grip on David’s forearm tightens but his gun doesn’t waver when he raises it again. “David, get behind me.” 

He doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he’s probably a better weapon against whatever this is than what Patrick has in his hand, but he does as he’s told. This could be how Patrick dies, and David cannot abide that. 

Stavros looks just as smug in death as he did in life. “Agent Brewer,” he says, “so lovely to see you again.” His voice sounds a bit like it’s underwater. 

Patrick clenches his jaw but remains silent. 

Alexis has at least stopped twisting on the bed, and David tries to inch along the wall closer to her. 

“David, don’t you dare,” Patrick whispers, and this time, Stavros turns his attention to him and tuts. 

That hollow-eyed stare is enough to stop him, but he’s dismayed to see that Patrick has started to circle around the other way, drawing Stavros’ attention away from David. The idiot is going to get himself killed.

He gets around the dresser and within steps of the bed, gaze darting between Alexis sprawled out on top of the covers and Patrick, gun raised, engaged in a standoff worthy of a western with Alexis’ dead ex-boyfriend. 

He grabs hold of her hand and she whimpers, weakly squeezing back. 

“David.” 

“I’m here,” he whispers, pushing her damp hair away from her face. 

“What’s wrong, Agent Brewer?” Stavros begins. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Then he plunges his hand into Patrick’s chest, causing his knees to buckle and the gun to fall from his grasp. 

“No!” David screams, but it gets drowned out by the horrific noise leaving Patrick’s lips. 

It’s like Stavros has his dead fingers around Patrick's heart and is squeezing the life from him. His eyes are red and his skin is turning grey, matching Stavros' pallor, and David lifts his hand to do something - _ anything _ \- but before he can reach for the magic he can feel crackling at his fingertips, Stavros howls and backs away, clutching his hand as Patrick’s badge tumbles to the ground from his breast pocket. 

From what David can tell, Stavros’ palm has the outline of a star burned into it, which is not something the dead man appears to appreciate. His face is hard and ugly as he advances on Patrick, crumpled on the ground. Patrick scrambles for the badge, looking at it in wonder for a brief moment before holding it up in a shaking hand. Stavros stumbles back, screaming in pain once more as he dissipates in a cloud of… something. 

“What the fuck?” David breathes, squeezing Alexis’ hand before letting go, hurrying over, and dropping to his knees in front of Patrick. 

“Patrick, look at me,” he says, reaching for Patrick’s shirt and running his hands over his chest. “Honey, look at me!” 

“I’m fine, David,” he gasps, leaning forward and resting his forehead on David’s collarbone. “M’fine.” 

David presses a kiss to his forehead and wraps his arms around his shoulders. “Don’t you ever fucking do that again, do you hear me?” 

Patrick nods against his chin, flexing his fingers. “Feels like I have ice water in my veins.” As if to drive the point home, he shivers, and David holds him tighter. “Is she okay?” he asks and David loves him a bit more for that. 

“I don’t know. I think so.” 

Alexis offers him a wan smile, which he returns, as Patrick lets go and reaches for his gun, flicking the safety on and sliding it into the holster at his back. 

Which, frankly, is all sorts of hot and David can unpack _that_ at a later time. 

He picks up the badge, running his thumb over the silver star and reining in every impulse he has to kiss it. This little hunk of metal saved Patrick’s heart and, therefore, saved David’s in turn. He holds it out and Patrick takes it, sliding it back into the inner pocket of his jacket once more. 

“Someday, you’ll hafta explain this all to me,” he murmurs and David nods, meeting Alexis’ eyes with a sinking feeling in his stomach that this isn’t quite over. 

“Someday,” he promises. 

He hopes he’s not lying. 

xxxxxx

Patrick had been shaken, but he still managed to pick Alexis up and carry her down three flights of stairs to the living room where David lit a fire in the hearth. He disappeared shortly thereafter, while David tucked a blanket around her and left to get her a glass of water. 

He glances at his phone as he waits until she finishes it, finding a text from Stevie:

**[Stevie]**   
**I called Ronnie about the store. She’ll fix it.**

He could cry, he really could. But then the reason he tore up the floor to begin with comes screaming back to him and he stands abruptly. “I’ll be right back, okay?” 

Alexis nods and curls up, closing her eyes, and she looks so much like the five-year-old who used to crawl into his bed during a storm that he has to pause for a moment. 

_ Patrick. _

He hurries through the kitchen and out to the porch, finding the man in question sitting on the top step, despite the plethora of chairs on offer, Winnie curled up in his lap, absentmindedly staring at the setting sun over the water. 

David comes down the steps to stand in front of him, arms crossed over his chest. 

“David, what was that?” Patrick quietly asks after a moment, but David shakes his head. Patrick tears his gaze away from the view and looks at him. “That was him, wasn’t it? I mean - Is he gone or - ” 

“Yes, you killed his spirit, but I’m the one who took his life.” God, it feels good to say that out loud. 

“Wait, I killed his _spirit_?” He lifts Winnie off his lap so he can stand and pace properly. 

“And I’ll tell you everything you need to know,” David continues, ignoring Patrick’s comment. “I’ll tell you how I did it. I’ll tell you where I buried him. I’ll tell you what I did it with. I’ll tell you how - ” 

“Just hold on, David. Just - just wait,” Patrick snaps, getting a hold of his shoulders and pausing his flailing. He sighs deeply and hangs his head. 

David desperately wants to hug him again.

“David, I took an oath to uphold the law. I thought I came here to bring in the bad guy, because generally, that’s what I do. It’s pretty straightforward, but this...” He stalks away and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. When he turns back, he looks wrecked. There’s no other word for it. “David, I don’t think I can put those handcuffs on you. And I don’t understand it. I don’t understand anything I saw today. Or anything I’m feeling. I like rules. I like order, but you - ” He laughs and clears his throat. “You keep breaking every single one. I don’t think I came here for Stavros, David. I think I came here for you. And I don’t know what that means.” His voice cracks and he looks out over the water again, but not fast enough to hide the tear that tumbles onto his cheek. 

David swallows hard, his own throat tight. _ Just tell him. Like a band-aid. _“The reason that you’re here and you don’t know why is because I sent for you.” 

Patrick drops his arms from where they rest on his hips. “What?” 

“When I was little, I worked a spell, so I would never fall in love.” He feels twelve-years-old all over again. “I asked for qualities in a man I knew couldn’t possibly exist.” His voice breaks. “But you do.” 

“You love me?” 

David stares. “_That’s _ what you’re getting from all of that?” 

Patrick shakes his head, as if trying to clear it. “You’re saying that what I’m feeling is just one of your spells?” 

“Yeah.” The words are ash in his mouth. “It’s not real.” 

“Feels pretty goddamn real to me, David.” 

David exhales as if he’s been punched, but gathers every ounce of strength he has to continue. It’s almost not enough. “If you stay, I wouldn’t know if it was because of the spell. And you wouldn’t know if it was because I didn’t want to go to prison.” 

Patrick turns and scratches the back of his neck, offering a pathetic attempt at a smile. “Yeah, well, all relationships have problems.”

That draws a laugh from David, but it dies quickly. “I’m right, aren’t I? You don’t know.” 

“I know you.” 

“No you don’t, Patrick.” 

“Then let me.” 

David shakes his head, even as every fiber of his being aches for the man in front of him. 

“You didn’t invent me, David. I don’t have these eyes or this hair or these skills because of you,” Patrick argues. “You didn’t make me, you _ found _ me.” 

He’s never had someone fight for him like this. But he can’t do it. He can’t go down this road. He toyed with the idea with Sebastien; the idea of making someone love him. But he can’t do that to Patrick. 

“You should go,” he says instead, though everything in him wants to call the words back. 

Patrick nods sadly, biting his lips as he stares at the ground. “Okay, David. You do what you do, and I’ll do what I do and we’ll just - see where we end up.” 

But David knows where they’ll end up. No on leaves here and comes back. And if the deathwatch beetle is to be believed, then it’s in Patrick’s best interest to get as far away from David as possible. 

Patrick bends down and gives Winnie one last pet, before standing and heading down the path. The fact that David can still feel the taste of his lips is probably fate’s cruelest joke and soundest punishment. 

“You know, curses only have power when you believe in them,” Patrick says as he turns one last time. He gives a little shrug. David wishes he was far enough away to not be able to see the dampness of his eyes. “And I only believe in you.” 

David watches him turn the corner, wondering how he manages to wait until he’s out of sight before succumbing to the tears. 

xxxxxx

The door shuts behind him with a finality he’s not prepared for, and Winnie looks up at him with an accusatory look he doesn’t need from one of the few people left on his side. 

“Not now,” he mutters, heading to the kitchen to make tea. Because tea fixes everything. 

Truth be told, he feels like he’s been carved out, hollowed of everything that made him capable of love, leaving just a hard shell behind. Patrick took all of the good things with him. 

He sticks his head into the living room, but Alexis is no longer curled up in the chair by the fire. Frowning, he turns to search the pantry or the greenhouse, but she appears almost out of nowhere, standing in front of him with a soft smile but an intensity in her eyes. 

“Okay?” he asks and she nods, holding out her arms. 

They’ve never really been huggers, but if anything was going to change that, it would be the events of the last few days. He steps into her embrace and wraps his arms around her bony shoulders, holding tight. 

Her grip on the back of his sweater tightens, as if keeping him in place, and she turns her head, whispering in his ear: “Country roads, take me home.” 

David tenses. There’s something wrong with her voice. 

_ Fuck. _

He immediately backs out of her grasp and turns around, drumming his fingers on his forehead. He knew it wasn’t over, but he didn’t think they’d made no fucking progress at all! 

_ Oh God, oh God, oh God. _

He wants to call Patrick back, but he’s burned that bridge. Patrick wanted to stay. David told him to go. 

He’s on his own. 

“Alexis, I’m so sorry,” he starts, bracing himself, “and I really hope you don’t remember this.” He turns and slaps her hard across the face, sending her into the shelving before sprawling onto the floor. 

_ Oh shit. _ He hurries over and she’s (thankfully) unconsciousness and hopefully not too bruised. 

“David!” a voice yells from the doorway, and he looks up to find his father standing there, brows knit together in concern. His mother pokes her head around his shoulder, takes in the scene, and raises an eyebrow. 

He’s never been so happy to see them in all his life. 

“Darling, what did I tell you about using your words?” 

xxxxxx

The last time he tied Alexis to something, it was a tree when they were playing pirate outside, back when they both had active imaginations, and then he ‘forgot’ to let her loose and she missed dinner. The fact it took his parents until nearly bedtime to notice she was missing is not something she’s ever let them live down. 

Now, he and his father are wrapping ropes around her as she sits in the leather chair by the fire, while his mother murmurs something under her breath, hovering her hands over Alexis’ chest. 

“He’s squatting in her like a toad. This is what comes from dabbling,” she scolds. “You can’t practice witchcraft while looking down your nose at it.” 

“I know,” he groans, tying the last of the rope and grabbing a bag of ice to press against the cheek he hit. He still feels sick about it. “Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”

His parents share a look. He braces himself. It’s never good when they band together. 

“We have lost touch as a family,” his father says. “And if we’re going to get through this ordeal, we have got to work as one.”

Johnny Rose usually takes a backseat when it comes to the magical shenanigans his family partakes in, but his daughter is tied to a chair and his son is sitting on the floor in custom Givenchy pants, looking more haggard than he ever has in his life. Even David knows that his father can’t sit this one out. 

“We have to banish him,” his mother says. “We need a full coven.” 

“That’s nine people, right?” his father asks. 

“Twelve is better,” she replies, before turning her appraising gaze on him. 

David does his best not to cower. 

“Do you have any friends?” 

xxxxxx

** _You’re my only friend, but apparently I need to find eight more._ **

**[Stevie]**   
**Did they not teach you how to do that in kindergarten? **

She’s mocking him. He’s never been so happy to have Stevie Budd mocking him. He last left her in the middle of the store he’d destroyed, yelling about Patrick being in trouble after she’d told him something was terribly wrong with Alexis.

Patrick is now gone and Alexis is… not Alexis. 

He craves this slice of normalcy. 

**[Stevie]**  
**What do you need?**

** _You. And a broom._ **

She arrives faster than he thought possible, but she’s holding the broom that he knows he keeps in the closet of the store. Maybe she never went back to the motel. The thought of her waiting around for his call warms something that’s been cold for far too long inside of him. 

They stare at each other for a moment, and God knows what he looks like; he’s been too afraid to look in a mirror. It must be bad, though, because the first thing she does is lean the broom against the wall and wrap her arms around him.

“How’s Alexis?” she asks.

“Possessed,” he says into her shoulder. She nods, like it’s an everyday thing.

“And Patrick?” 

David inhales. “He’s gone.” He lets go and steps back, walls of defense fortifying themselves once more. “It’s for the best.” 

She narrows her eyes. “Is it?” 

But he doesn’t answer her. 

They head into the kitchen where his mother has started concocting something that smells absolutely rank. He groans and gags, clapping a hand over his nose and mouth as his father holds out a piece of paper with a phone number. He reads the name scribbled at the top and groans. 

If there’s a surefire way to get word around town, it’s Bob Currie. 

“Why do_ I _ have to call?” he whines, but his father just rolls his eyes and hands him the house phone. 

He paces the length of the kitchen, jamming the buttons on the ancient landline and ignoring the overly supportive looks his father is throwing him. It’s better than Stevie, though, who looks downright gleeful. 

_ “Yello?” _ Bob answers and David has to bite back another groan. 

“Bob, hi, it’s David… David Rose....”

_ “David! What can I do for ya?” _

“Yeah, here’s the thing. You know all that stuff that everyone’s always whispering about me, the hexes, the spells... ?”

_ “Uh huh.” _

“So, like, that’s all true…”

Silence. 

“I’m a witch.” 

Stevie shoots his a thumbs up and he flips her off.

_ “Well, hell, David, I knew that.” _

Oh. “Right. _ Anyway, _ we have a bit of a situation over here. My sister is getting out of a - a bad relationship and we could use some help.”

_ “Whatever you need!” _ Is it really that easy? 

“Great. Um, can you bring a broom? And other people?” 

He hangs up with a promise from Bob to arrive with seven others within the hour. He doesn’t realize his hands are shaking until Stevie comes over and grabs them. 

“Come on. Your mom said we need to clear the room.” 

Moving furniture is good. It’s an outlet for the energy currently humming throughout his body. They shove the sofa and chairs into the dining room, leaving the chair holding Alexis by the hearth. His dad lines up candlesticks on the mantle and Stevie follows in his wake with a box of matches. David catches her arm before she can light the last one, leaning up on his toes and blowing out a breath. 

The wick smokes and catches fire, sending light dancing across his face. 

He looks at Stevie and waits for her reaction. The most she’s ever seen him do is stir a cup of coffee. 

She stares at him for a moment before huffing out a laugh and slowly shaking her head. “Yeah, I’m gonna need to see more of that.” 

He smiles and nods, looking around for more candles, wanting to show off for the first time, possibly ever. He’s not sure what the feeling is that’s welling up inside of him. If he examines it closely, he might just realize it’s pride.

He slides the pocket doors leading to the living room shut, hating that Alexis is all alone, but knowing it’s for the best. And it won’t be for long - 

Headlights reflect off the front windows, and he moves to the side door to flag down those arriving. Bob gets out of his truck first, followed by Jocelyn and Roland. Despite the fact that they need all the help they can get, he really would have preferred that Roland stay home. Still, Ronnie pulls up next, followed by Ray who seems to have given Twyla a ride. 

They all actually came. 

He stands there, staring as they greet each other: the mayor and the teacher, the real estate agent and the contractor, the mechanic and the waitress. He gives a small wave from the porch, beckoning them inside. 

He shakes hands with Roland and Bob, while Ray, Twyla, and Jocelyn all offer him hugs. Which is a thing he guesses he does now. Ronnie just gives him a nod, and he decides he likes her even more because of it. 

“Now’s not the time to be a bashful clam,” his mother announces from the doorway, ushering them all inside. 

His dad is stirring the horrific thing on the stove, trying to entice people closer. “Come on, grab a spoon, and dig right in,” he says to Twyla. “Doesn’t that look great? And the fumes are great for the pores, or so David tells me.” 

“I tell him it smells like a gym bag,” he mutters to Jocelyn, who laughs. She’s not too bad when she isn’t haranguing him with her orange flyers. 

“Great for the pores and for sealing his pernicious spirit back into the grave,” his mother claims, causing everyone to pause for a moment.

“Witches,” David reminds and everyone nods. Like that’s a thing you hear every day. 

“David, that’s only ten,” Stevie whispers and, sure enough, it is. His mom said they could do it with nine, but twelve was better. 

Having seen Alexis, he thinks they need better. 

“I sent word around to my cousins,” Twyla says, “but they’re not the most reliable.” 

“Karen couldn’t get out of work,” Ronnie adds, and Bob nods as well. 

“Gwen’s at a pickleball tournament.” 

“What the fuck is pickleball?” Stevie mutters. 

“Who the fuck is Gwen?” David replies. 

“Am I too late?” a voice says, and he turns to find Ted standing in the doorway. 

David could fucking hug him. 

Winnie immediately runs over and jumps up on his leg, because she knows that where Ted goes, treats are sure to follow. 

“Hey, buddy!” he greets, though David honestly isn’t sure if he’s addressing the dog or him.

“That’s still only eleven,” he murmurs mostly to himself. 

There’s another knock at the door and David moves towards it, expecting someone like Twyla’s third cousin twice removed - 

But there stands Patrick through the glass, looking contrite, but determined; expression pained, but shoulders squared.

David swings the door back and opens his mouth but nothing comes. 

“I couldn’t do it,” Patrick exhales on a breath, like he’s been holding onto it this whole time. “I couldn’t leave.” 

If he had anything else to say, it gets lost in the press of David’s lips. 

xxxxxx

Had he had his way, David would have kept Patrick as far away from his family as humanly possible, but throw in his parents _ and _all of the city council and David is really considering changing his name and hauling ass out of town.

It takes a minute for them to untangle themselves, neither really keen to let go. David rests his forehead against Patrick’s and just breathes. 

“I’m glad you’re here.” 

“Are you?” 

He nods. “We need twelve and we only had eleven.” 

Patrick pulls away, solely so David can see him roll his eyes. “I’m flattered.” Then he turns serious. “Alexis?” 

David swallows and nods. “I need you here,” he says, and he means so much more than just as their 12th. He needs his stability. He needs his optimism. He needs his love. "Come on."

They finally turn then and freeze at the sight of ten pairs of eyes on them, some watching with more interest than others (Ray is clutching his hands against his chest; Ronnie is eyeing the bottle of whiskey on the counter). 

Patrick steps forward and holds out a hand for Stevie, the closest to them. 

“Ms. Budd,” he greets. 

“Agent Brewer,” she replies. 

“Agent,” his dad says, eyes wide, weight shifting. 

“Dad, he already saved our lives once today. I think he’s good - ”

And that’s when he hears it again - the sound that had him tearing up the floorboards in his store and cursing whichever ancestor is responsible for trying to take Patrick away from him. 

This is nothing like Sebastien. Pain through loss? Sebastien was fucking child’s play. The jolt of unabashed fear that slices through him now makes him physically lurch forward. 

His mother looks at him, then at Patrick. He shifts under her knowing scrutiny. 

“Pat, please stick near David for the rest of the evening,” she says, “if you wouldn’t mind.” 

“We’re not doing Pat,” David replies, but he knows that’s as close as Moira Rose gets to giving her blessing; as close as she comes to expressing concern, so he takes it, despite the fact that his voice has gone hoarse. 

Patrick presses into his side regardless, and he’s oh so grateful. Maybe if he doesn’t let him out of his sight for the rest of his life, nothing bad will happen. It's a childish thought, but one he clings to. 

His father begins to gather up the brooms that everyone brought, saying something about going to form the circle. David bends down and scoops up Winnie where she’d abandoned Ted to start circling Patrick and carries her to the pantry. He looks over his shoulder to find Patrick has taken the ‘stick close to David’ advice to heart. 

He places her on the floor and starts to back out the door, but she whimpers, paw thumping at the ground. He swears if dogs could pout, Winnie would be a fucking master at it. “Don’t look at me like that, it’s for your own good.” She tilts her head and he huffs. “I’m serious. You don’t want any part of this.” She whimpers again and he groans, crouching down and scratching behind her ears. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” he murmurs into her fur and she rewards him with a tiny lick to his cheek. “Thank you,” he replies, kissing her on the head before standing once more. 

Patrick bends down for his own snuggle with her, before they leave the pantry, shutting the door firmly behind them. David glances down the hall to find that, for the first time since he returned, they’re alone. 

Patrick leans in and kisses him, a simple thing that still manages to weaken his knees. 

He hears the beetle again and tenses, fingers digging into Patrick's sides. Patrick’s arms come around his waist like a habit, and he holds on tight. 

“Are you going to tell me what that means?” 

“No,” he whispers, ignoring the tear that falls onto his cheek. 

Patrick brushes his nose against David’s. “I still only believe in you, you know.”

He squeezes his eyes closed, tipping his head back and nodding. “Just - please stick close to me.” 

“Okay, David,” he breathes.

A throat clears at the end of the hall and he opens his eyes to find Stevie standing there. 

“It’s time.” 

xxxxxx

“Pick a broom. Form a circle,” his mother instructs as his father slides the pocket doors open. The room beyond comes into view and everyone, David included, freezes. 

“Jesus Christ,” Patrick whispers, grabbing onto his hand and moving forward, but David gets a hand on his chest. 

“Don’t.” 

Alexis is in the center of the circle of brooms, hair matted to her face, twisting on the floor in pain. Patrick looks like it’s taking every ounce of self control he has not to go to her. 

“There’s nothing you can do,” he whispers. “At least not on your own.” 

“Holy shit,” Ronnie mutters as she steps into the room. 

“I’ve been hung up on a guy before, but this is…” Twyla trails off and shakes her head, ponytail bobbing. 

“Would each of you pick up your brooms and hold them at staff length, handle to brush?” his mother asks. “Remember that as we go forth, it is only with our hearts beating as one that we can save the life of this child.” 

David’s breath hitches, and Patrick presses into his side. Stevie presses into his other. 

His mother clears her throat and brushes her hair back from her face. He notices that it’s the first time in days he’s seen her without a wig. 

“Di te perdant. Te maledico,” she starts to murmur, nodding along to his father who joins her. “Di te perdant. Te maledico.” 

“Are we supposed to say this?” Jocelyn asks and Ronnie nudges her. They both start saying it too. 

Stevie looks at him, trying out the unfamiliar words. “Di te perdant. Te maledico.” 

He nods and says it with her. “Di te perdant. Te maledico.” His family has a habit of butchering Latin for their spells, but they work. In their defense, they never did claim to be scholars. He turns to look at Patrick and see how he’s doing, but of course the Boy Scout is handling the spell just fine. 

Alexis grunts and twitches on the floor, and he feels a chunk of his soul splinter off with every noise of pain that escapes her. 

They repeat the chant over and over; their voices growing, their rhythm building. 

Alexis shrieks and flips to her stomach, banging her hand on the floor. She shrieks again and claws at the wood, as candles starts to flicker and the paintings fall off the wall. 

David has trailed off in the chant, watching his sister, tears falling down his face without him realizing. He starts to shake his head, but no one is paying him any attention. Can’t they see what’s happening? 

She screams again. The loudest she has so far. 

“Stop it,” he breathes, then more urgently, “Stop it, stop it! We’re killing her!” He lets Patrick and Stevie take the ends of his broom and he crouches down. “Alexis!” He bangs on the floor, trying to get her attention. “Alexis! Alexis, look at me!” 

But when she turns to look at him, a stranger stares back.

“Fight this, you bastard,” Alexis growls, lunging for him before whatever boundary the circle of brooms has created throws her violently backwards towards the center. 

Multiple people scream and the chanting stops. Alexis lands on the floor with a thud that David feels in the marrow of his bones. 

“Oh God, Alexis? Alexis, talk to me.” He crawls around, not giving a shit about the state of his pants as he puts himself in her eyeline. “Alexis, honey, I’m here.” 

He’s never used a pet name on her in all their lives. She coughs and rolls over to face him, eyes pained, fingers reaching out. But it's her.

He lies down, cheek pressed into the hardwood. “I’m here,” he whispers again. 

“Everyone, put your brooms down,” his mother says, voice devoid of the affects she does so love to employ. “But do not break the circle.” 

A broom is lowered in front of him, and he extends his hand as far as it can go. Alexis mirrors him, their pinky fingers brushing the wood. 

“I can fix this,” he says. He doesn’t notice that everyone has backed off to give them a moment of privacy. “I can make this better.” 

She shakes her head, smile still triumphant, even if the rest of her body looks like it’s waving a white flag. “I think the party’s over, big brother,” she whispers. She sounds exhausted. 

David can feel Patrick’s grip on his ankle, just letting him know he’s there. He’s not sure he’ll ever find the words to tell him how much that gesture means. 

And then Alexis says five words that steal the air from his lungs. “Just let him take me.” 

“Uh huh, no, you have to hold on. You have to stay with me. You can’t leave me alone with Mom and Dad again.”

She smiles again, eyes blinking slowly. “I’m so tired.” 

“I know you are, honey. I know.” His voice breaks but he doesn’t care. 

“He wants me. Just me.” 

“I want you more. We all do.” He can hear others sniffling, but he blocks it out. He cannot lose it now. Already, his chest feelings like it's caving in. 

“Everyone will be safe - ” 

“No - ” 

“Just let him take me.” 

“Nope. Not an option. Don’t die on me, Alexis Rose, please.” He’s not above begging. “We’re supposed to die together, remember? You promised. And I have the goddamn scar to prove it. This is not that day.” 

Patrick’s grip on his ankle tightens. 

“Love you, David,” she murmurs and his heart stops. 

Oh they’ve _ never _said that to each other. 

“Don’t you fucking dare,” he nearly growls, an idea hitting him as desperation and despair take hold. “Okay. Okay, I’ve got it, I have a plan,” he announces, getting to unsteady feet and rubbing his hands over his damp face. He thinks it may work, but he doubts anyone’s worry is quelled by the no doubt panicked look in his eye. “Get them back in the circle.” He’s not sure who he says that to, but someone will listen, surely.

He stumbles into the kitchen, breath hitching as he opens a cabinet and pulls out a container of salt. “I need tequila,” he mutters and then Roland is beside him saying he has some in his truck, which is disconcerting on so many levels. He heads to the refrigerator next and finds a lime, hands shaking as he pulls out a knife. 

A moment later, Patrick is gently pulling it out of his grip. 

“I’ll do this,” he says softly, taking the lime and grabbing the cutting board on the counter. “You wanna tell me about this plan?” 

David looks towards the living room, grateful that no one else has followed them. “I’m going to be bait.” 

The knife stills. Patrick’s back goes rigid as he slowly puts it down and turns. “David, no.” 

“She’s my sister.” 

“And I’m - ” he freezes, cutting himself off, denying David whatever was at the end of that sentence. 

“Yes,” he breathes, stepping forward and taking Patrick’s face in his hands. In the end, the words don’t matter, really. “Yes, you are.” 

Patrick’s face does that awful scrunchy thing, like he’s trying not to get emotional and failing. David just wants to wrap him up and hide him away from the world. He wants to wrap all of them up. 

“Let me do it,” Patrick offers. “He doesn’t - he can’t hurt me.” 

Absolutely fucking not because other things can. 

“It needs to be me,” he says instead, which is the truth. “We share blood.” 

Patrick is shaking his head but David holds him in place once more, brushing the softest of kisses over his eyelids. “I know I can do this. Can you trust me?” he asks, throwing Patrick’s own question back at him. 

Patrick audibly swallows and, after a moment, nods. “Yes.” He goes over to his discarded coat hanging on the back of a chair and pulls out his badge, returning to David and sliding it in his back pocket. His smile is a small, secret thing. “Just in case.” 

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes. Twelve-year-old David thought he dreamt up a man who didn’t exist, but even in his wildest imaginations, he never could have dreamt up Patrick Brewer. 

Roland returns then, effectively breaking the moment, and Patrick steps back so David can accept the tequila he’s handing over. 

He looks at his wares: his salt, his lime, his liquor, his forced confidence, and inhales. 

“We can do this,” he says to no one in particular, heading for the living room once more. But before he gets to the door, Patrick grabs his arm, spins him around, and holds his face so carefully in his hands. 

“I love you,” he says fiercely and, though the words he’d like to say in return get caught in his throat, David nods. 

“Good," he breathes, "because I’m going to need your help.” 

xxxxxx

The candles are making the room stuffy and hot, and he’s stripped off his sweater, leaving him in just the white t-shirt beneath. He shouldn’t have goosebumps, but Patrick is crouching right behind him, so really, it was inevitable. 

“You ready?” he asks. 

Patrick noses briefly behind his ear, hands firm and steady on his back. “I’ve got you.” 

And he knows he does. 

He meets Stevie’s eye to his left and she nods, offering him an encouraging smile. He meets his mother’s gaze across the circle, and she’s honestly never looked prouder of him. His father to his right, however, looks like he needs a stiff drink. 

“Okay, let’s do this thing.” 

He nods at Stevie and she slowly slides the handle of her broom back, breaking the circle. 

David sprinkles some salt between his thumb and forefinger, licks it, and takes a swing from the bottle Roland procured. It tastes like motor oil, but beggars can't be choosers. 

“Hey Stavros,” he calls, “you thirsty?” He shakes the bottle, the tequila sloshing back and forth within the glass. 

Alexis opens her eyes, and his sister is gone once more. She slowly sits up and looks around the circle, a predator marking its prey. 

“Is this what you want?” he asks, drawing her focus to him once more. He tilts the bottle so Alexis/Stavros can read the label. She leans closer to him. “Well, sorry to disappoint, but this you can’t have.” 

What happens next is almost a blur: he goes to take another swig and Alexis lunges for him. He dodges out of the way as Ted and his father get a hold of her arms from outside the circle. Patrick presses a knife into his hand and he slices his scarred palm. 

“My blood.” He takes Alexis’ wrist and cuts her palm as well. “Your blood.” He drops the knife and clasps their hands together. “Our blood.” 

He hugs Alexis tight even as she wrestles against him, and his mother yells, “Now, Patrick!” 

David feels Patrick’s strong hands on his back sliding them both into the center. He assumes that Stevie got the broom back in place, solidifying the circle once more, as he feels magic crackle through every nerve-ending in his body. Alexis’ heart rabbits against his own where their chests are pressed together, and he holds on as tight as he should have to keep her from running away in the first place. 

He’s always wondered what people mean when they say their life flashes before their eyes, but now he thinks he gets it. Holding tight to his sister, he sees candles that won’t light and some that will; birds with needles and a desire too strong for any one person to bear; leather-bound books with pressed flowers and spells to protect a heart that walled itself away at far too young an age. 

_ “You have to want it,” _ he had said. 

Bright light flashes, enveloping them in safety and warmth, and then a force blows them apart, arms extended, hands still clasped, leaving them gasping in the center of the circle, clutching tight and breathing hard. 

“Oh my god, David,” Alexis says after a moment and David laughs out a sob because she sounds like herself. 

“Alexis?” 

She glances at the faces around them, eyes lingering on Ted far longer than they should given what they’ve just been through, before she looks down at herself. 

“Ew, I do not like this look for me.” 

He snorts and catches Stevie’s eye, surprised to find tears on her cheeks as well. 

“David?” Patrick asks.

He turns, immediately reaching out with his free hand, reluctant to let go of Alexis yet needing to touch Patrick, tangling his fingers in his shirt. “I’m good,” he says. “I’m okay.” 

Patrick checks him over anyway, running his hands over his hair, his shirt, his arms, before cupping his face in his hands and pressing a soft kiss to his forehead. 

“Aw, Button!” Alexis cries, clapping her hands together as Patrick laughs and David mutters, “Jesus Christ.” 

He meets his mother’s gaze and he knows, whatever that white light was did more than just bring Alexis back. It broke the curse.

_ Can love travel back in time and heal a broken heart? _His grandmother had asked him that once, when he was too small to imagine the implications. Frankly, who the fuck knows, but if it means the man at his side isn’t going anywhere any time soon, then he’ll take it. 

Everyone seems to be giggling, reveling in the high that magic (even magic adjacent) can sometimes bring. Ray claps his hands together, exclaiming, “That was fun!” as Stevie looks up at the ceiling. 

“Um, heads up,” she says, noticing the swirling fog/sand/mist whatever hovering above them. It looks like what Stavros turned into when Patrick pulled his badge on him. 

Patrick tugs on David’s arm, and he and Alexis quickly scramble out of the circle. Patrick’s arms immediately come around his waist, hugging him tight to his chest. 

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” his mother intones, and Stevie snorts which is so on brand and yet so inappropriate, David can’t help but giggle too. 

The dust starts to fall and, with it, the outline of Stavros’ body, growling as he plunges… wherever the bad people go, David assumes. It’s weird and it makes him shiver, but really, this is what his family signed up for.

“I wonder if that would work on my Mom’s ex-husband,” Twyla asks and Ronnie’s face says she has a few people she’d like to use it on too. 

“Okay, Roses, I know our cleaning skills are rusty,” his father says, “but let’s go.” He picks up a broom and everyone follows suit, sweeping what’s left of Stavros through the kitchen (which will be _ thoroughly _ scrubbed) and outside by the roses. They form a tidy pile and, by the time David turns, Ted and Roland are carrying the pot of whatever his mother made from the stove between them.

“Would you like to do the honors?” Ted asks. 

Alexis nods, and she and David each take a handle. He steps forward, but Alexis doesn’t follow, and it pulls him back a bit because the pot is really fucking heavy.

“You okay?” 

She has an odd look on her face. Nothing bad, nothing like the past few days, but different. 

“Thank you, David,” she says, and now he knows why. 

It’s sincerity. 

_ “Thanks for saving me.” _

_ “Thanks for letting me.” _

“Always,” he replies. Because she’s his sister and (sometimes unfortunately) that’s how this works. “Three…” he starts. 

“Two…” she continues. 

“One,” they say together, dumping the vile contents onto the pile and watching steam rise into the night as everyone cheers. 

It should be ridiculous, and it is in its way, but it’s also kind of wonderful. 

David Rose is 34-years-old when he finally feels like he belongs. 

xxxxxx

A legitimately harrowing evening has somehow turned into quite the party.

Everyone is taking turns clipping the rose bush and tossing it into the bonfire that David conjured (which had everyone cheering again), and his mother’s liquor cabinet has been broken into (though he’s pretty sure she’s the one who did the breaking). 

It’s late - far too late for anyone to still be coherent - but they’re running on pure joy and adrenaline now, and David sits back on the rickety porch swing, watching the revelry with a sense of calm that’s… new for him. 

Patrick is a steadying presence beside him, and David leans into his warmth, closing his eyes and breathing in the scent of whiskey and firewood. 

Stevie is sitting on the floor, leaning against the railing with Winnie curled up in her lap. He doesn’t know what glass of vodka she’s on, but at least she’s stopped asking him what Patrick’s tonsils taste like. 

His father is talking with Roland and Bob, cheersing their beers every two minutes for a job well done, and his mother seems to be deep in conversation with Ray about - David strains to hear - closet organization? 

“Stevie told me what happened to the store, David,” Ronnie says, stopping by the swing on her way back from refilling her glass. “Just pay for the new boards. Labor is on the house.” 

Patrick gives him a questioning look, but he shakes his head. He doesn’t need to know what he did to the store in his name. 

“Thank you, Ronnie,” he says and she nods, heading back down to the yard to indulge her inner pyromaniac with Twyla. 

The screen door opens again with a creak, and David doesn’t need to look to know Alexis is standing next to him, having showered and changed into something more comfortable, mainly his favorite pair of Prada sweats that he’s letting slide _ just this once. _

She sits down next to Stevie, and he witholds a groan because Prada is not meant to be worn in the wild. 

“Ted asked me if I wanted to get coffee.” She bites her lip and looks up at him through her eyelashes. “What do you think?” 

David snorts. “I think if he’s still willing to date you after that shitshow, then for the love of God, don’t let him go.” 

“Ugh, you’re the worst, David,” she moans, but there’s a smile tugging at her lips. Patrick swats his arm and Alexis preens in his direction. “Thank you, Button.” 

“Nope, _ that’s _ not happening,” he declares, glaring at both his sister and his… whatever Patrick is. 

Alexis watches him carefully, showing far more intuition than he ever gave her credit for. “Come on, Stevie. Come help me burn something.” She stands and helps Stevie up, who in turn dumps Winnie in Patrick’s lap. 

“Okay then,” he manages, adjusting the puppy and trying to avoid the frantic licks she’s placing on his face. 

David watches his sister and his best friend take the large branch that Ronnie and Twyla are holding out for them, laughing loudly and freely as they toss it in the fire, jumping up and down as the branches crack and spit. He inhales deeply again, but all he breathes is Patrick. With their buffer gone, a tension settles between them, and he squeezes his eyes shut.

“What do you do now?” he asks before his brain can tell him what a stupid question that is. 

Patrick gently runs his hand over Winnie’s head, now that she’s finally settled. “I go back to Toronto. File a report.” 

David nods and swallows. A crime was still committed. Someone will have to answer for it. In the ensuing chaos, he forgot about that little tidbit. “And say what?” 

Patrick smiles and pulls out his phone, opening up his email and showing David a message sent earlier that afternoon addressed to the Toronto Crown Attorney Office. 

**Re: Stavros Demetriou**   
**CASE: #8607040868**

**After further investigation, this office hereby concludes that Stavros Demetriou’s cause of death is accidental. Jewelry found in the ashes of the structure provide positive identification. **

**Sincerely, **   
**Patrick Brewer**   
**Special Investigator**

David stares at it for far longer than he needs to, eyes no longer reading the words. He licks his lips and hands the phone back, clearing his throat of a lump that just won’t budge. “And after you go back to Toronto?” 

Patrick shrugs and David hates the teasing nonchalance he wears so well. “It’s October 23rd. I hear Halloween is a hell of a party.” He smiles and something coiled tight within David releases. 

“You want to watch me fly off the roof?” 

Patrick grins, open and wide and real. “I really do.” 

“And what about after Halloween?” he asks, because he’s greedy. “Here just for the show?” 

“Oh no,” Patrick says, carefully lifting Winnie to the ground and turning sideways, meeting David’s gaze head on. “I want to see all these products I’ve been hearing so much about. Then maybe you can explain to me why the shampoo is so expensive.” 

David bites his lips and nods, fighting so hard against a happiness he never thought he deserved. Against a wanting he never thought he was allowed to have. “Um, it’s a very expansive process? Could take days to explain. Weeks.” 

Patrick cups his face in his hand. “Months?” 

David nods again. 

“I have years,” Patrick breathes. 

_ “You have to want it.” _

And David does. 

**Author's Note:**

> \- Practical Magic the novel was written by Alice Hoffman. The screenplay for the 1998 movie was by Robin Swicord, Akiva Goldsman, and Adam Brooks


End file.
